


The Hawk and His Handler

by charis2770



Category: Marvel, Marvel Adventures: Avengers, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Age Play, Ageplay, And then it's not, BDSM, Clint Barton is a brat, Clint Barton is bored, Clint Barton is really really sorry, Clint's really sad, Dom Phil, Exhibitionism, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, Lonely Clint, M/M, Natasha knows why even if he doesnt, Non-consensual scenes of torture, Phil is being reassigned, Polyamory, Punishment, Roleplay, Slash, Some really terrible people, Sorta menage a trois if you squint a little, Sub Clint, Tasha and FEELS??, Wow this fic keeps growing!, Wow this is awkward
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2017-12-03 19:05:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 214,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charis2770/pseuds/charis2770
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I debated (and resisted) writing this for a long time. But I read some really amazing Barton/Coulson fics that wormed into my brain and wouldn't leave. My Clint loves Natasha, and that's not going to change, but I realized that my Clint is probably the least sexually repressed person I know and that loving both of them isn't that much of a stretch for him at all. And that Natasha is probably the only character in my fics secure enough in herself to really be okay with it. These stories are complete filth. If you read my stuff because it's not slash, you're gonna want to skip these, but omitting them won't mess up the rest of the storyline. I don't know how much I'll do with this, but my brain is a VERY sick place, so this is probably only going to get worse!</p><p>See the photocollage I created to illustrate this work at :<br/>http://www.picisto.com/view/picisto-20130302165343-575149</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

He looks up only briefly when the door opens, not really acknowledging Tasha when she slides into the living room and throws her jacket over a chair. She’s been in Tucson with Fury for the last couple of days, and he’s missed her fiercely, but today’s events have blunted all his feelings but a deep, aching sorrow. Tasha, being possibly the most observant person he knows, cannot help but notice his distinct lack of an enthusiastic welcome. Not being prone to wifely displays of concern (or anything else wifely either and would probably obliterate him if he ever even thought the M word), she comes to stand beside him where he’s staring blindly out at a drizzly, cold, grey New York skyline without really seeing it.

“What’s wrong, Barton?” She’s not one to waste words either.

“Had a meeting with Phil,” he admits reluctantly. Tasha goes very still, which tells him she’d probably known it was coming before he did.

“Okay,” she says quietly, and waits. Once upon a time they’d have done some dance where he didn’t want to talk about it, and she let him get away with that until he pissed her off with his moodiness and she smacked him around until he got over it or told her what was up. Mostly these days they just tell each other stuff, and save the smacking around for fun.

He sighs heavily, his whole body sagging a little.

“I’ve been reassigned, and so has he,” he says bleakly.

“Well,” she says carefully, “both of us have kind of become a little too public to be undercover SHIELD agents anymore. We’re Avengers. Coulson’s a handler.”

“He’s _my_ handler,” whispers Clint, feeling bereft in a way he hasn’t since Tasha flew off and left him standing in an abandoned orphanage.

“He’s my handler too, Clint,” Tasha reminds him. He looks sideways at her. It’s different and she knows it. Maybe she’s just playing devil’s advocate.

“You’ll miss him too,” he says, though it’s a little bit of a question.

She shrugs.

“Yes, a little. Not like you will though,” she concedes his point for him before he has to make it. “I haven’t been close to a handler in….well. Ever. I was taught not to have personal feelings for my handlers. Plus I’ve been working directly with Fury a lot more this past year. I like Phil, and I trust him, and I am grateful to him for trusting your judgment, but I don’t love him. Not like you do.”

Clint’s eyebrows go up, and he swivels his head to look at her in surprise.

“Love him?”

She smiles briefly at him, a tiny quirk of her lips, and her hand steals down to twine in his own, which is a really surprising thing for her to do. Not that she never offers comfort, just that it’s usually of a more carnal nature than this simple hand-holding. Tasha doesn’t hold hands. She wants hers free to go for a weapon or a jugular vein at a moment’s notice. She tugs gently, and he follows her to the sofa and sits at her urging. She sits beside him, legs thrown casually over his so that she’s still touching him but it’s not confining for either of them.

“Yes,” she says seriously. “You’ve had a serious case of hero worship for Phil since before I met either of you.”

He sighs a little, but this is true.

“He believed in me when no one else did,” he agrees. “He trusted me, and he changed me from SHIELD’s biggest liability to their biggest asset. Well, until we recruited you, that is.” He grins at her. The grin is halfhearted, he knows, but not because the fact bothers him, only because he doesn’t really feel like grinning.

“He didn’t make you SHIELD’s biggest asset,” says Natasha. “You did. But I’m not belittling what he is to you. He helped you realize you could be, and that’s almost the same thing.”

“I get why this has to happen,” he says softly, knowing there is real grief in his voice, and wondering why he is so close to actual tears. “I’m an Avenger now. We’re….we’re honest to God real fucking super heroes, which I still sometimes can’t wrap my head around. We don’t need handlers anymore. We’re a team, and we’re here to keep the monsters away when the world doesn’t have anybody else to turn to. Goddamn, I sound like a fucking press release. But ok, yeah, that’s what we are, and I get it. I do. Phil’s a handler, probably the best one SHIELD’s ever had, and he needs to do what he’s good at. I didn’t think this would hit me so hard is all.”

“It’s probably all the unrequited feelings going on,” she says softly, and he can’t respond. His mouth hangs open while he looks at her in disbelief.

“The what now?”

“You do know Phil’s gay, right?” Natasha asks curiously.

“Yes, I’ve known for a long time. He told me not long after he got me assigned to him, wanted to clear the air and let me know it would never get in the way, but that he needed it out in the open in case I was going to have a problem with it. I didn’t. I never did.”

“No. But it has to be a little weird for you, to have feelings for him that are partly towards a father figure, which he obviously is, and partly attraction that you’ve never been able to express or act on.”

He shoves her feet out of his lap and stands up, glaring down at her, affronted.

“What the fuck, Tasha?”

She looks up at him calmly.

“You heard what I said,” she says, not flinching.

“Tasha, I’m not gay,” he says, furious with her, not really able to stop and wonder why he’s reacting quite so strongly. “If the past few months haven’t demonstrated that clearly enough, I’ll be glad to show you again, when I stop wanting to punch you in the mouth”

“If you punch me in the mouth, I’ll break your arm,” she says easily. “I know you’re not gay, Barton. That’s probably a big part of why this is so weird for you.”

For quite a long time, he’s too flabbergasted to even begin to formulate a response. Even when he starts to speak, it’s pretty disjointed and confused.

“I….you….how can you…..why would you think…..Tasha! You’re my lover.”

“There’s only one actual sentence in there, Clint,” she points out matter-of-factly.

“Well yeah but it’s a pretty fucking important sentence, Tash!”

She sighs, and stands up as well, walking away to go stare out the window herself, apparently because even now it’s a little hard for her to comfortably look him in the eye while she says what she says next.

“It’s fucking important to me too,” she says quietly. “I guess you know I’m gone over your sorry ass. But Clint…if I love you, doesn’t that mean I want you to be happy, even more than I want me to be happy?”

Despite the fact that he’s outraged and speechless and conflicted as shit right now, he does still feel a kernel of warmth inside when she says she loves him, even in her roundabout way.

“Stop it,” he snaps suddenly when he realizes what she’s said there at the last. “You are not going to stand there and give me some bullshit speech about how you’re setting me free to go be with Phil!”

She looks at him like he’s crazy.

“No,” she agrees readily. “I’ll set you free probably about when we’re both dead in a ditch somewhere. Asshat. You’re mine, and I’m keeping you.”

“Well. Good. Then what the fuck, Tasha?”

She threads her fingers through her hair and tugs in frustration.

“I am not good at this shit,” she snarls, glaring at him. He holds his hands up.

“Don’t blame me; you’re the one who’s talking crazy right now.”

In typical fashion, which he has come to know and love, even though he almost always comes out on the losing end of it, she lashes out and knocks his feet out from under him, following him to the ground and sitting on his belly. Despite himself, he feels his dick twitch and start to stiffen. She notices, and instead of rolling her eyes, reaches back to grab hold of him through his fatigues, which finishes the job.

“Will you stop thinking with your brain for once and start thinking with your dick so I can make you get this?” she says, and this statement is so outrageous that he can’t help but laugh. Her lips twitch, but she squeezes a little harder than is comfortable and he subsides.

“Obviously, you’ve got me at your mercy. What is it I’m supposed to be getting?”

“Are you homophobic, Clint?”

“Of course not. You know that. Half the people I grew up with in the circus were pretty much gender blind and took their lovers from either side. Sometimes both at once.”

“But you didn’t.” This is a statement, rather than a question. She knows he’s never had a sexual encounter with another guy.

“No. It just….didn’t fall out that way, I guess.”

“Are you dead set against the idea of ever letting a man put his hands on you?” she asks, and she actually seems curious. This conversation is probably the strangest one he’s ever had.

“I am _now_ ,” he says with a slight leer up at her. “My girlfriend would geld me if I looked at anyone else.”

“Will you stop being literal and answer me?” She’s starting to act annoyed, and since her hand is still on his twitching cock, he decides he’d better cooperate.

“Where you’re going with this is freaking me out a little, but okay. No, I was never dead set against it. Once or twice there was a guy who made me consider it, for a little while, but I just never met a dude who did it for me that way.”

“Until Phil,” she says ruthlessly. He glares at her. This again.

“Phil’s my handler, and my friend,” he says stiffly. “He’s a professional, and we like and respect each other. I’m with YOU, Tasha. This is stupid.”

“Do you realize that you haven’t actually said you’re NOT attracted to him?”

He goes quiet for a minute, because it’s true. This is not a conversation he’s ever thought he’d have with anyone, including himself. She squeezes again, more gently, and he can’t help that his hips arch up towards her a little. He can’t understand why she’s talking about this, with evidence of his complete attraction to her throbbing in her hand. He also wishes he wasn’t wearing pants.

“You dream sometimes,” she says ruthlessly, and he feels a flush staining his cheeks before she even continues the thought, because he knows what she’s going to say, he just hadn’t known she knew about it. “You don’t talk in your sleep much, but I’ve heard you say his name once or twice. And it wasn’t a nightmare you were having, Clint. “

“Jesus, Natasha,” he mutters, looking away from her. She sighs again.

“I’m trying to make this easy for you, Barton, and you keep getting in the way.”

“Easy for me?? It sounds fuck-all like you’re trying to throw me at another man, and I don’t know where the hell that’s coming from, because I’m fucking HAPPY with you, Tasha. I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

“Barton, you’re a moron,” she says disgustedly.

“You are the only woman on the face of the planet who would call her lover a moron for insisting on being faithful to her.”

“A moron,” she continues resolutely. “And it’s usually you who sees things more clearly than I do. Jesus Clint, it’s not like you could call our relationship conventional in any way.”

“No, but that doesn’t make us swingers!”

She snorts with laughter at this, and he’s briefly transported by the image of Tasha in what he imagines a swingers’ club to be like, sending prospective partners fleeing in abject terror just by looking at them, until they’re the only two people left in the entire building.

“God forbid,” she murmurs to herself, then abruptly lets go of his dick and sits back (which doesn’t help at all because now her absolutely perfect ass is pressing against his erection, which is nowhere near as confused as he is. She puts her hands on her hips, ignoring this, and glares at him. “Why did it scare you when I fucked you, Clint?” she asks suddenly. His flush deepens, because talking about what is absolutely the most naked moment of his entire life is a little sensitive, even though he’s grateful to her for it. And even though, if he’s honest, the memory of it still wakes him trembling with need and on the verge of spilling all over his sheets like an adolescent boy. They haven’t done it again since then. It was too raw, too heartrending, to duplicate. Probably. He’s honestly not sure how to answer her question.

“I…hell, Tash, I don’t know. I’d never done it before, you’d already hurt me a lot, and I figured it was going to hurt even more.”

She looks at him thoughtfully.

“I don’t think that’s really why,” she muses. He thinks she might be right.

“I guess I’ve never thought about why it scared me so much. I was pretty fucked up at the time, and you’d already broken me.” He may not always be able to express what he’s thinking, but it isn’t because he can’t be honest with her.

“That’s not really right either,” she goes on. She isn’t mad anymore, she’s earnest, and that’s still weirding him out. A lot. “I didn’t really break you til I fucked you.”

Jesus. But she’s right.

“Okay, I guess that’s true.”

“When I asked you then if you loved it, and you said yes, were you lying?”

They’ve just come way too far together for him to flinch away from this now.

“No,” he admits. “Wasn’t lying. It scared me, ripped out my bleeding fuckin heart and blasted me to pieces….but….oh hell. I didn’t just like it.”

“No,” she says with a small smile, and since it’s a slightly lascivious one, he’s relieved to know the memory doesn’t freak her out either. She grows very solemn then. “I need to ask you to be as honest with me now as you were that day, when you were stripped down to nothing. Can you?”

“I can try,” he says, uncomfortably, because he’s pretty sure they’re back to the Phil thing again.

“DO you dream about him? That way, I mean?”

“I’m going to answer you, Tash, but Jesus, do you get why this is really freaking me out?”

“Yeah, but that’s stupid.” She sighs, and rolls her eyes, and seems to steel herself for something she finds difficult. She looks steadily into his eyes. “Clint. If I had a problem with this, do you really think I’d be putting you through it? It’s fine. I’m fine. We’re fine. We’re going to keep being fine. Okay?”

“Okay,” he sighs, and steels himself to be honest, hoping he’s not screwing up the best thing that’s ever happened to him. “Yeah. I have dreams sometimes. They freak me out when I wake up, but not…during. But Tash, that doesn’t mean I’m not happy with you, or satisfied.”

“Dumbass,” she says comfortably. “I know that. If you feel obligated to say it again, I’ll hurt you. In a bad way.”

He supposes he should be thankful he’s done something right enough up until now that she is this comfortable with a subject this treacherous.

“Point taken,” he assures her quickly, before she decides to make good on the threat. “So okay. Yeah, it’s not something I’ve ever wanted to think a lot about, you know? I’ve known you were it for me for a long time. This…thing, I guess you can call it a fantasy…it sort of blindsided me when I had the dream the first time, about three years ago.”

She raises her eyebrows a little.

“Three years? You’ve had a boner for Coulson for three years and never said anything? Barton, you’re the least sexually repressed person I know! Why didn’t you ever tell him?”

“Jesus, Tasha. I may be an irreverent, smartassed fuckup with a problem with authority, but I respect Phil. If I know nothing else about him, I know that if I’d done any such thing, he’d have been horrified. Even if by some totally bizarre twist of fate he had the same weird thoughts about me, he would never act on them, and would have withdrawn himself as my handler if I’d gone there.”

She thinks about this for a minute.

“Ok yeah, you’re right. I’m not sure why you think it would be a bizarre twist of fate for him to have the same kind of boner for you, but you’re right that he’d refuse to act on it.”

“I’m not his type, that’s why,” he says, a little ruefully. “Phil’s a pretty classy guy, with his suits and ties, and his unshakable calm, and his high class tastes. I’d be like…slumming…for him.”

The look she sends him then is vile, and promises dire retribution.

“That what you think I’m doing?” she purrs dangerously.

“No. Jesus. A lot of days I’m not sure what the fuck you’re doing here, but I’m damned grateful for it.”

“Asshat,” she sighs comfortably. “What’s the dream about?”

“Fuck, Natasha, I don’t think I can talk about that to you. This whole thing is weird, but that’s just TOO weird.”

“Seriously, there’s a reason I’m asking. I want to know if I’m right about something. You don’t have to give me details, though if you ever decide to, I gotta tell you I think it kind of turns me on to think about it, but okay. I mean…will you tell me just…kind of the circumstances?”

Turns her on? He blinks slowly at her in surprise. Ohhhhkay then.

“Um…it’s just….shit, this is strange. People don’t talk to their lovers about prurient dreams they have about another person.”

“Yeah,” she agrees sarcastically. “God knows we do everything just like normal people.”

“Point taken.” He squirms a little, uncomfortably, then closes his eyes because he’s not ready to see the reaction on her face, and dives in. “Circumstances. Okay. I’m….he’s…forceful. He takes; he doesn’t give me a choice. I feel like…I keep thinking that I hope I’m pleasing him. There’s this feeling of….like, surrender, I guess? It makes me feel safe. Weird, huh?”

“Not particularly. You have a strong submissive streak, and we’re too equal to really feed it very often.”

“I love switching with you, Tash,” he protests, realizing as he does so that his protests are starting to sound a little thin.

“Me too. It’s not quite the same, though. Clint, please listen to me. Coulson’s not your handler anymore. He’ll be heading back to the west coast soon. Believe me when I say he definitely returns the attraction. I think you need this, both of you, or it’s going to eat at you for the rest of your lives. I know it doesn’t mean you want me less, or him more. There is room in a lot of people’s hearts for more than one person. I think you’re one of them. And it doesn’t bother me. If you decide to leave me for him, I’ll kill you both, but I trust you, trust US enough that I’m not jealous or worried. To be honest, I kind of hope it goes well, because if it does, sometime I want to watch.”

“You hope what goes well?”

“You seducing Phil before it’s too late.”

There are a lot more words, protests, reasons, and arguments. At the end, he’s left with a split lip and the immensely confusing reality that he’s promised his girlfriend he’ll try to have sex with another man tonight.

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

The security on Coulson’s rooms is very good, but doesn’t extend to the air vents in the ceiling. If he was any bigger, there’d be a good chance nobody’d know he was stuck up there until maintenance got sent to track down the smell. But he’s not, so he spends his evening alternately trying to relax in and pacing nervously up and down Coulson’s living room. Coulson has an apartment in the city, but Clint knows he’s been staying here since the Chitauri invasion. Or, well, since he came back to them shortly afterwards. Clint still doesn’t think a lot about that day. If Coulson had stayed dead….

But he hadn’t.

The rooms are tidy, with no extraneous clutter. The walls are painted a soft, misty gray color. Tasteful prints along with black and white photography are hung in aesthetically pleasing locations. The furniture is masculine but elegant, leather and dark gleaming woods. The dinette is walnut, and only big enough for two, though it is currently set for one. Seems like Phil, to lay out things in preparation for dinner when he gets home, even if he’s been out all day. The single plate, wine glass, and silver flatware make Clint feel lonely. He wonders if Phil ever feels that way, or if his mind has no room for anything but the job like it appears to. Hell, Phil may have a dozen lovers, for all he knows. He realizes with a pang that he doesn’t know a lot about Coulson’s personal life. Shouldn’t he have asked more often, if he was really Phil’s friend? Jesus, the handler probably thinks he’s a self-centered asshole! What the fuck is he even doing here? If Phil doesn’t laugh at him, he’s going to get pissed and throw him out!

He’s making his way into the hall where the loose vent cover is located, intending to leave the way he came and forget this entire insane idea, but he’s too late. Behind him, there’s a series of clicks and the door opens. The apartment is very dim, with only one small lamp providing light, so Coulson’s body is momentarily silhouetted black against the brighter light of the hallway. Clint freezes, and sees Phil do the same. Knowing that they are both trained in what to do when they surprise an intruder, he moves into the oasis of light cast by the lamp so that he can be seen more clearly, making sure his hands can be seen, empty and held slightly away from his body.

“It’s me,” he says quickly, before Phil can draw the gun he knows is hidden under the tailored suit jacket, even though it can’t be seen. Phil relaxes, and enters his rooms, closing the door behind him.

“What a pleasant surprise, Agent Barton,” he says, and Clint thinks he’s probably the only one who can hear the wry sarcasm in it. Everybody thinks Phil has no sense of humor. “Though why you chose to avail yourself of my hospitality without say, waiting until I was home and _knocking_ , I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps you’d care to enlighten me?”

Clint hunches his shoulders up around his ears and wonders what the fuck he’s supposed to say.

“Hi Phil, welcome home, how’d you like to fuck me?” or “Nice to see you Coulson, now whaddya say we get freaky?” or “Feeling up to some farewell nookie, buttercup?” Clint’s brain tends to grow more and more perverse the more uncomfortable he is. This is off the scale. He feels frozen, and his mind is a reeling turmoil of not knowing what the hell he’s doing.

“Tasha sent me,” he manages, and realizes that wasn’t an enlightening choice at all. Shit, probably it would have helped if he’d….lit candles, started up some mood music (what would Coulson consider mood music anyway? Opera? Mozart? Barry White? God, he hopes it’s not Barry White), fixed dinner….something. Probably. Instead he just stands there with his hands still held out from his sides, still trying to look nonthreatening. Phil raises one eyebrow and moves further into the room, placing a set of keys and his SHIELD badge and wallet in a brushed-silver bowl on a small table by the door.

“Did Tasha have a reason, or is this some obscure Russian traditional thing our research department has never heard of?” Colson straightens his sleeves a little and goes to a dark cherrywood cabinet, where he retrieves a heavy crystal snifter and pours himself a drink. Scotch, Clint knows, Macallan 50 year old single malt. Clint hates the stuff, but Coulson’s a connoisseur. Suddenly he realizes he’s being stupid and he really does know a lot about Phil. He knows the crystal in Coulson’s hand is Lalique, as are the two gleaming crystal sculptures set on recessed pedestals on either side of the leather sofa, both nude dancers frozen forever in impossible positions, so beautifully rendered that you can almost see the faint tremble in muscles that strain to hold that perfect pose. He knows that Phil’s suit is Armani, his perfectly shined loafers are Gucci, his watch is Breguet. When in New York, he dines once a month at Eleven Madison Park. He holds season tickets at the Met, and prefers classic or impressionist paintings to modern or cubist forms. He likes dogs but doesn’t care for cats. He’s allergic to bee stings and carries and epi pen in a neat leather case in his inside coat pocket, along with a garrote and an extra mag for his sig. He doesn’t have much time to read for fun, but loves Stephen King and is secretly a Harry Potter fan. He loves French cuisine, sushi, and Italian ices from street vendors. He has a secret weakness for Sabratt’s hot dogs. He swims every morning he’s able, and can almost keep up with Clint at a flat run, though admittedly this is partly because he’s taller and his legs are longer. He has a huge collection of old comic books and cards (of which the now-bloodstained Captain America cards are STILL his prized possessions, though he’s coldly informed Fury that he has six months to find replacements. Clint doesn’t know what happens at the end of six months if Fury fails to come through, but he’d kill to find out.)

While realizing all this makes him feel a little less out of place in Phil’s living room, it doesn’t do a damn thing for helping him figure out what the fuck to SAY to the man. He’s no silver-tongued sophisticate, and he’s never trolled for boys in a gay bar and doesn’t have a clue as to the lingo. He never finished high school, and can’t tell a Rembrandt from a Picasso. He’s a lot better at actions than words.

Well then. What the fuck.

Taking a deep breath, he crosses to Phil in a few quick strides, and before the handler can realize what he’s about, plucks the scotch from his hand, downs it in one gulp even though he finds it foul, and kisses Phil right on the mouth. As Phil’s belatedly reacting by rearing his head back in shock, it isn’t a terribly successful kiss, and their teeth clash. Clint tries to put his hands on Coulson’s waist, but Phil grabs both his wrists and does a little twist and shove at the same time until Clint finds himself slammed up against the wall with Phil glaring furiously at him, his cheeks stained red, breathing hard. His shirt is still buttoned all the way up, his silk tie still neatly knotted, every hair still in place, but the expression on his face is far from composed. Clint finds this distressing. He also finds it distressing that Coulson was able to get the upper hand on him this easily, but chalks it up to uncertainty and nerves making him clumsy.

“What the HELL do you think you’re doing, Agent Barton?” hisses Coulson. He sounds really pissed. Clint suddenly realizes it’s quite possible Tasha has mistaken the signs of Phil’s attraction to him, and that he has made an enormous mistake.

"I'm your going-away present. Don't you want to unwrap me?" he says with a smirking grin. He's starting to feel horribly embarrassed and covers it up by going for casually flippant. Phil’s hands on his wrists grind hard against bone and he swallows a moan, hoping to just be able to get out of here in one piece.

“Are you insane?” asks Phil, still outraged. “Agent Romanoff would never forgive this kind of betrayal, and neither would I. I am not in need of your pity, Agent Barton, and I’ll thank you to leave my apartment at once before this farce goes too far!”

Well ouch. That stings a little. Seems he’s right after all, and he’s not up to Coulson’s standards.

“Tasha _sent_ me,” he says, and feels stupid that his voice sounds a little sullen. “I already told you that. I don’t need your pity either, and I’ll get the fuck out of your hair if you’ll LET THE FUCK GO OF MY ARMS!”

Phil does not let go. His grip on Clint’s wrists is viselike, and Clint concentrates hard on not liking it.

“Explain yourself. Now.”

That tone of voice, commanding, uncompromising, sends a bolt of electricity straight through Clint’s belly. He realizes he’s loved the way Phil gives orders for years, and that okay, the reason their relationship as spy and handler has worked so well for him is that Phil makes him feel like obeying him. He draws a shuddering breath, because when Phil snaps orders like that, he is unable to do anything but comply.

“She did, Sir,” he says softly, falling easily into the subordinate role. “She says that if I don’t…find out what this thing is….that she says I feel about you….before it’s too late, that I’ll regret it forever.”

Coulson closes his eyes briefly, as though praying for patience or trying to think of a way to let him down easy, Clint imagines.  When he opens them again, Clint is startled to see heat in them.

“And what do you say, Agent Barton?” he asks softly. Clint sighs, and twists his wrists a little in Coulson’s grasp because he knows it will make his handler grip them tighter and when he does, Clint can answer him. He can’t, however, quite bring himself to meet Coulson’s gaze when he does it.

“I say she’s right, Sir,” he whispers.

Abruptly, Phil lets go of him and turns away. Feeling a little bereft, Clint stays where he is, leaning against the wall for support and wondering if he could just sink through the floor. Coulson pulls his cell phone out of his pants pocket, presses a button, and brings it to his ear. There’s a brief pause, then he speaks. His voice is cold as ice.

“Are you insane?” he demands frostily, then is silent for quite some time, while the person on the other end of the line, presumably Natasha, speaks. After several minutes, and without saying another word, he disconnects the call and tosses his phone onto the bar at Clint’s side. Clint watches it slide on the silky marble top, wondering if it’ll slide off the other side. It doesn’t, but it teeters dangerously on the edge. It’s a mistake to take his gaze off Coulson though, because he suddenly finds himself slammed hard against the wall again, and this time he hits his head a solid thunk when Coulson’s forearm connects with his throat and forces his head up and back. His eyelids flutter and he’s unable to silence a tiny sound, not even quite a whimper.

“Listen to me very carefully, Barton,” says Phil tightly. Clint tries to nod, but can’t. “This is by far the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever done in a long history of ridiculous choices. I have no idea what has made the two of you come up with this harebrained scheme, but it is not appreciated.”

Clint feels about two inches tall, and knows his ears are red with embarrassment.

“I’m sorry Sir. I told her I wasn’t your type. She thinks if I….if we….ah. Then maybe I’ll stop having the dream and not wish….well. Never mind. I really am sorry. If you’d…uh…let go, Sir, I’ll just…leave now.”

Yep. Leave now, go dig a very deep hole, climb in it, and never come out. Well, maybe several months after Coulson goes back to the West coast, he’ll think about it. Tasha’s radar has never been this far off before. This is quite possibly the worst night of his life. Coulson’s forearm, which is deceptively slim for someone who is actually as strong as the handler, presses harder against his windpipe, cutting off his air a little bit. This time the sound he makes is undeniably a whimper, and he hates himself for it, for what it reveals. Coulson’s furious gaze darkens even more.

“What. Dream.” He grits out, almost spitting the words in Clint’s face.

“The one where we….where you….and….where we’re doing….this, Sir. Only,” whispers Clint miserably, “In the dream….you want to.”

Coulson closes his eyes briefly and points his face at the ceiling, as if he’s praying for patience.

“Why are you doing this, Agent,” he asks very softly, a dangerous edge in his voice that Clint has only heard twice before, and both times it was after he’d gotten hurt on a mission. The voice will brook no protest, and demands truth, clear and simple.

“Because I want to,” whispers Clint, simply. Coulson inhales sharply and his head jolts back a little in surprise. He is silent for some time, staring at Clint, who is unable to stop himself from fidgeting a little under the scrutiny. Jesus, Coulson always makes him feel like a kid, and this time it’s worse than ever. Which is also disturbingly arousing. Or would be, if Clint wasn’t mortally humiliated right now.

“I am going to say some things to you, Agent Barton,” he says, enunciating each word carefully. “I want you to listen closely to them, and not interrupt me. When I am finished, I am going to ask you a very important question, which you will answer truthfully. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes Sir,” gasps Clint, who is still having a little trouble breathing, or it could just be that Coulson’s making him dizzy. At the honorific, Coulson makes a sound in the back of his throat that is nearly a snarl. Clint wants to reach up and loosen his tie and put his mouth on the place on Phil’s throat that his collar and tie are currently concealing. He feels this is probably an inappropriate response just at the moment.

“I have been your handler for four years, Agent Barton,” begins Phil. His voice is calm now, but the arm against Clint’s neck is trembling a little. “Four years, and we have worked well together. I have found it an honor and a privilege to be your handler, and had considered you my friend as well. I have watched you grow from a cocky, rude, disrespectful liability into an agent and a man anyone would be proud to know. I have trusted you, and been trusted in return. We have not always agreed, but we have treated one another with respect, or we had until tonight. I have worked very hard to make sure that my personal preferences and choices never crossed over into our working relationship, because to allow that to happen would have been unprofessional and inexcusable. There is also the fact that I have seen how you looked at agent Romanov from the day you brought her to me, unconscious rather than dead as expected. I have known all along that while my…tastes….did not offend you, you very clearly did not share them. I have been quite careful to make sure that you never,” and here his arm presses down sharply and Clint wheezes a little, “NEVER had a single inkling that I found you attractive. I have a great deal of difficulty believing you would mock that, had you become aware of it by some miracle, so I am trying not to be mortally offended by your insolent offer regarding goodbye presents, but it is not easy. I can’t do this, Clint. I can’t take what you’re offering, knowing it isn’t what you really want, when you’re this ridiculously gorgeous, inexperienced, beautiful boy I have thought of so often and so indecently it makes me feel ashamed, knowing I might hurt or distress you, that I would ruin something that should be a dream come true because I can’t help myself. It isn’t fair, Agent. So do not dare stand there and offer me the moon when all you have to truly give is lip service. I am well aware that you’re not gay, and what you’re offering me is…well…it’s so tempting that I am not man enough to refuse it more than once. I was prepared to brush this off as some absurdly misguided scheme my two protégées cooked up as a farewell gift, which would have been insulting, but then you had to go and mention dreams. I am not strong enough to refuse again, Clint, because I have to tell you that I want this. Badly. I am giving you one chance. One. Be very careful how you answer, because I’m not going to be able to stop if you let me get started. Do you understand that?”

Clint, who has been listening with growing astonishment, nods as best he can while being asphyxiated.

“Very well. This is the question. What. Do. You. Want?”

The forearm eases back enough for Clint to gasp in a huge lungful of air. The combination of being forcibly restrained, the clean leather scent of Phil’s cologne, and the things the handler has just confessed to him have all combined to give him a raging hard-on. He licks his lips nervously, sees Coulson’s eyes follow its nervous sweep across his lips and wants to moan. He closes his eyes, prays for courage, and answers.

“I want you,” he breathes.

“What?” asks Coulson, his arm dropping abruptly as he steps back in shock, this clearly NOT being the answer he was expecting. Emboldened, Clint raises his eyes to stare into the wide shocked expression on Phil’s face.

“I want you, Sir,” he repeats. Coulson’s eyelids drop. “You like that, don’t you? The Sir? Yeah, I like saying it. Sir,” he whispers. “I want this. I want you. I want you….” He leans forward, until his face is next to Phil’s, and breathes into his ear, “to _fuck_ me.” He’s back on ground he understand now, oh yes, and it turns out slumming is Phil’s style after all. His handler’s hand flashes up and fists in his shirt, and he’s shoved against the wall for the third time tonight, not minding a bit this time, nossir. Coulson leans close, and Clint breathes him in, and shivers, because while he’s acting a little cocky now, he’s still nervous as hell. Coulson’s voice in his ear is a snarl, and he feels it in his spine.

“You’d better be very sure what you’re asking for, little boy,” he hisses, and Clint groans, because _fuck_ that’s what Phil calls him in the dream. Coulson reacts to the groan by crowding his body up against the archer, and when Clint feels the older man’s groin press into his, and his rather impressive erection hot against the inside of his thigh, he feels a little dizzy. “Like that, is it?” he murmurs with some amusement. Clint tugs at the perfectly knotted tie, pulls it free, pinches open the top button of Phil’s perfectly pressed dress shirt. He does what he’s wanted to do for what seems like hours now, pressing his mouth to the hollow of Phil’s throat, his teeth scraping skin while he answers, breathless and still a little scared, stumbling a little over his words as he answers.

“Is it….any wonder, Sir? Guy who…ah…raised me….tied me to a wheel and threw knives at me. I was into bondage before I hit puberty. Then I was…SHIELD’s worst behavior problem….until you saved me, showed me….Jesus you smell good…what I could be. Is it really any wonder I got a little bit of daddy kink going on?”

The hand Phil doesn’t have clenched in Clint’s shirt slides up to fist in his hair, which Clint is, not for the first time cause Tasha’s a puller too, very thankful he has let grow out some from its usual short, near-military crop.

“Bondage hm?” says Phil speculatively. “You know Agent, boys who ask to be tied up should really be very careful what they ask for.”

Fuuuuuckkkk. He’s so screwed. In the dream, Phil is rough with him, and that’s enough, but this…this dark silky menace  in his voice, is startling because he’d have never pegged Phil for this, with his proper manners and his perfect composure and impeccable grooming, and Jesus Christ if it’s true, if Phil is as sick a bastard as he himself, or even anywhere near the same zipcode (cause face it, he thinks, that’s pretty damn sick), he’s not sure he’s going to survive it. He whines a little when Phil yanks his head back roughly and kisses him. It’s so different than kissing a woman, to feel another face rough with stubble against his own, the hard line of masculine jaw instead of a soft feminine cheek, lips and teeth and tongue the same as his. Yeah, weird, but shit, it’s hot too, and he’s starting to feel a lot less nervous.

“You have no idea what you’re offering, little boy,” murmurs Coulson warningly, pulling back a little, his chest rising and falling heavily as he looks at Clint through hooded eyes.

“Jesus. Fuck. Show me Sir,” he gasps. Coulson groans a little and the hand in his hair gentles, strokes the curve of his skull. Clint leans into the caress, sighing.

“You have no idea what you’re asking. No, Barton, not your first time. It would….it would bring out some aggressive tendencies in me that would be an unfortunate mix for you, since you’ve never done this before.”

“Have,” mutters Clint, turning his head to press teeth to Coulson’s wrist where his pulse pounds, thick and heavy. He’s almost certain Phil swears softly under his breath.

“I know for a fact it was only a couple of months before Loki….” Coulson hesitates a second, then plows ahead, skimming over the name like it’s nothing, and that’s good, that’s fine, Clint doesn’t want to think about him tonight anyway, “that you’d imbibed a truly astonishing volume of tequila and wanted to ask me what it was like being gay, during which very odd conversation you told me you had never been with a man. Either you worked pretty quickly after that or….are you telling me that Loki….” He trails off, looking horrified. “Oh Clint….”

“No,” Clint hurries to reassure him, because this dawning horror, this sorrow he sees trying to bloom on Phil’s face, is NOT what he wants from him right now. “No, definitely no, that’s not what I mean. And yeah, I mean no, I’ve still never been with a guy. I mean…” Clint realizes what he’s saying and blushes, because he’s never told anybody this. Oh what the hell, anything to take that look off Coulson’s face. “It was Tasha,” he says in a rush, and buries his face in Phil’s shirt, feeling like he’s about twelve again and admitting he’s had his first wet dream. He has no idea why he’s acting this way. It isn’t like him. But shit, when Phil calls him little boy, he just sinks into it like quicksand and he’s there, and it’s still a little scary but it’s like warm sunlight on a part of him that’s only ever lived in darkness, and he’s going to try not to examine it too closely.

Then Phil’s hand clenches again in his hair and he sighs happily as Phil chuckles a little.

“I see. Still, that doesn’t mean you’re….accustomed….to this. I don’t want to hurt you, Clint.”

Clint stares at his face, sees both the hunger and the lie written there.

“Yes, you do,” he says, and then, recklessly, foolishly, “and I want you to.” Phil’s grip turns brutal, tight enough to make his eyes water, and Clint does the only thing he can think to do under the circumstances. There’s no foolish pride in him. Plenty of pride, yeah, and god knows he’s one of the hardest-headed sons of bitches he’s ever known, but since Tasha came into his life, he knows that letting pride get in the way of what you want is just stupid. If he’s doing this, and apparently he is, then he’s damn well going all out. He slides gracefully to his knees, knowing he does it well because being in tune with his body has never been one of his weak points. Coulson likes it. Oh, he does. Clint blushes and lowers his eyes at the flare of dark shine in Phil’s eyes. He has no idea what’s gotten into him, why he’s behaving so recklessly when he truly doesn’t know what the consequences may be, but the feelings from the dream are taking him over, and he wants. Oh, he wants. He wants Phil to be pleased with him, to see the smile of pride he finds so rewarding after a mission accomplished on Phil’s face for a much dirtier reason. He wants Phil to pet him and tell him he’s a good boy. He wants to make Phil happy, to erase the lines of pain and stress he sometimes sees in the older man’s face. He comes close to feeling this way with Tasha, sometimes. But she is right when she says they are too equal to really feed the part of him that wants to kneel at another’s feet and give himself to them, to serve them and feel the surge of pride and peace that comes when you are owned, and it is good, and the one who owns you tells you that you’ve done well. He knows where these feelings come from, remembers being an anxious, messed up young kid with a little talent, and trying so hard to master the tasks the Marksman taught him, how patient he had been and yet how tough. He remembers the brush of a callused hand over his head, the touch fleeting and affectionate, and the voice rough with years of tobacco use musing, “Not bad, boy. Not bad.” He’d lived for those moments. He remembers the clench in his gut when he’d gotten caught breaking curfew and making out with the ringmaster’s daughter INSIDE the off-limits runs where the big cats were housed, and the hiss of his mentor’s belt as it slid through the loops. He remembers the sting of it, and how he’d tried not to cry but had anyway, and the rough awkward hug after and the gruff, “All right now, boy. It’s forgotten.” And it was. Oh yeah, he knows why he feels this way, and he knows why he feels this way for Phil, and now that he does know, all he can think about is that Phil will be gone soon and he wants this to be _perfect_. He looks up at Phil’s face, and his breath catches a little in his throat at the smile on Phil’s face.

“Do you…” he asks hesitantly, because he’s not sure how to be cool about it when he doesn’t feel cool at all, he feels nervous and inexperienced and foolish, but god damn, he’s gonna try. “Would you like me to…go down on you, Sir?” He’s pretty much eye to…hem….eye, with Phil’s evident arousal. There’s even a tiny spot of damp blackening the dark grey of Phil’s trousers. Fuck. He has no idea how to do this, and it never would have occurred to him to actually ask Tasha for pointers, but what the hell. Maybe Phil won’t expect too much. Phil, in response to his question, looks at the ceiling again and sucks in a huge, shuddering breath.

“You have no idea, son,” he says with a slightly rueful smile. But then he’s tugging Clint to his feet and towards the bedroom. “But that might be a little….overwhelming, and uncomfortable for you. I have dreamed about a night like this for too long to let anything spoil it, for you or me. If it isn’t…good for you, it’s not going to be good for me either. And Clint, I _can_ make it good for you.”

“You don’t have to be gentle with me, Sir,” says Clint, feeling rather anxious, because no, that’s not what he wants from Phil. The reassuringly predatory smile Phil shoots at him sends a thrill through his body.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t hurt you, little boy,” says Phil quietly, and his voice is gentle and menacing at the same time. “I said I’d make it good for you.”

“Yes Sir,” says Hawkeye faintly, and lets himself be towed into Phil’s bedroom. Jesus, he thinks, mind going blank for a second, I’m in Phil’s bedroom. I’m in PHIL’S bedroom. I’m in Phil’s BEDROOM. He freezes for a moment, but Phil’s grip on his arm is steely, and he has to follow or fight back, and he really doesn’t want to fight back. At the edge of the bed, which is wide and covered with a blue and green spread, and bound at the head and foot by a heavy cherry frame.

“Looks sturdy,” he says, knowing it sounds inane, but he’s having mental images of Phil tying him to it and….Oh god, he’s really lost his mind. Phil’s mouth quirks in a smile.

“It is. Strip.”

“Sir?”

“I said,” breathes Phil, stepping so close Clint can feel the heat of his body through both their clothes, “Clinton Francis Barton, take your clothes off. Obey me. Now.”

Well fuck, since he’s put it that way. Clint wonders briefly if he’s going to come in his pants like a kid before he can get them off, but he manages not to, and to slither out of his clothes. He hopes he doesn’t look as awkward and ungainly as he feels, because his hands are shaking a little, but Phil’s looking at him like he’s candy, so he thinks maybe he’s okay. When he is naked, though Phil is still fully clothed, Coulson pushes him gently backwards onto the bed. The archer scrambles to arrange himself in some semblance of a normal pose on top of the soft comforter. Coulson smiles down at him for just a moment, and then Clint blinks in surprise as the older man is sort of just suddenly there, on his hands and knees above him, his body framing the younger man’s, looking down at him with what can only be described as a feral grin. Clint doesn’t think he’s ever seen Coulson grin before. He shivers.

“Put your hands above you on the headboard,” Phil orders, and the tone in his voice is calm, though he is still breathing hard. Hawkeye gropes above his head until he finds the sturdy crosspiece of the headboard. He wraps his hands around it and squeezes hard. “Good boy,” whispers Phil, and these words are very nearly Clint’s undoing, because he’s dreamed them before, but never heard them for real. He knows it’s sick, and he doesn’t care. “Now, don’t move them until I tell you that you may. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes Sir,” gasps Clint, and oh Jesus, oh Fuck, if Coulson will only keep talking to him like that, he’ll do anything he wants. His hips buck upwards towards the other man, he can’t help it, and his cry of shock is really just that, when Phil’s palm connects with his thigh with a sharp slap. It doesn’t really hurt, not compared to a lot of the things he and Tasha have done, but it’s _Phil_ slapping him and it goes beyond even what he’s dreamed about, and shocks him. Coulson leans down and kisses him again then, and it’s still strange, but only because the sensation of it is different than anything he’s experienced before, not because he doesn’t like it. Phil’s fingertips on his jaw hold his head still and he hums a soft, contented sound into Phil’s mouth, making the handler laugh.

“Good god, Barton,” he says with a slightly silly smile. “If I’d known you’d be this eager, I’d have gotten reassigned a long time ago.”

“If I’d known I’d be this eager,” pants Clint into his impending lover’s mouth, “I’d have asked you to.”

“No regrets though?” Coulson asks, and it’s kind of weird to think Phil might actually be wanting reassurance.

“None Sir. I wouldn’t be where I am without you. And this…well, we’re here now. Guess I wouldn’t really want to change the other, cause I’m not sure I’d even be alive today if I hadn’t been assigned to you.”

“It wasn’t random, you know,” smiles Phil, and nips Clint sharply on the bottom lip, causing Clint’s hips to roll helplessly towards him again and gaining him another stinging slap on the inner thigh. Coulson continues as though none of this has occurred. “I requested you, you know.”

“Y…you did? _Why?_ I was a total fuckup then!”

Phil’s fingers on his throat and jaw are gentle, and Clint shivers.

“No, just lost,” he says with another warm smile that makes the archer feel a little gooey inside, and aint that a hell of a thing? “I saw excellence in you, beyond all the attitude problems and insubordination reprimands in your file.”

“Not sure why you put up with me,” he gasps, as Coulson’s fingers drift through his hair and tug gently.

“Does it make me a terrible person to admit I fantasized about spanking you black and blue a great many times that first year?”

Clint closes his eyes, momentarily transported by this mental image, and moans softly, unable to help it. Coulson chuckles.

“Oh….only the first year, Sir?”

“After the first year I fantasized about it for entirely different and unprofessional reasons.”

“Fuck, Sir. Do you….do you wanna? Now?”

Phil pauses for a second in his soft caresses of Clint’s throat and face and hair and his lips quirk again.

“To borrow some of your colorful and deplorable language,” he growls softly, giving Clint goosebumps, “You’re fucking right I do. Would it help you….with this?”

Clint squirms, unable to be still against the hot spear of lust that stabs through him when Phil curses, and nods breathlessly.

“Oh god, Sir. Yes Sir. I….I want this, I do, so much, but it’s….I’m….ugh,” he fumbles awkwardly for words, wishing for not the first time that he had a tenth of Phil’s eloquence. This is probably why he and Tasha are so well suited for each other. She doesn’t like wasting a lot of words, and he’s not awesome with them when he’s flustered, but they understand each other anyway. Of course, he’s always found it easier to talk to Tasha than anyone else. Except maybe, recently, Jane. This, though, it’s overwhelming him and he’s feels sort of cast adrift without an anchor. Thankfully, Phil understands him too.

“You’re still nervous,” supplies Coulson helpfully.

“Yeah.”

Phil leans down and kisses him, quick and hard, and then backs off until he sits on his heels near the foot of the bed, gazing up Clint’s body with what can only be described as hunger. Clint squirms some more, because Phil’s eyes make him feel even more naked than he already is.

“Turn over on your stomach, little boy, and grab hold of the headboard again. Don’t let go.”

“Yes Sir, I mean no Sir, I won’t,” promises Clint, and does it, hurriedly. He buries his face in the pillow underneath him and waits, breathlessly. Coulson’s hand lightly brushes the curve if his ass and he presses himself up into it, because he can’t help it. The hand squeezes once, gently, and then the almost ticklish sensation of Phil’s hand touching him so carefully is replaced by the sharp sting and what seems to him an earsplitting crack of Coulson’s hand impacting his backside. He sucks in his breath and squirms harder than ever, his aching erection rubbing maddeningly against the bedspread. It feels so _good_ , but it’s not enough pressure to make him come. The hand comes down again, forcefully, the wrist snapping at the end so the sensation is all sting and not the bone-jarring impact of the full force of Phil’s arm. After five, he’s writhing against the comforter like he’s fucking it, panting. After ten, his raising his hips up to meet Phil’s hand, and spouting filth at him, babbling like an idiot, which is okay, because it makes Phil chuckle and hit him harder.

“Fuck, Sir. Do it. More. I want you to. Jesus, shit. You sick bastard, you love this. _Unngh._ Don’t  stop, please don’t stop. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Jesus Sir, you’re good at this. _Ohhh_ motherFUCK. Yes, goddamn. Yess. FFuuuuccckkk.”

Coulson pauses for a few seconds and Clint whines, because he is NOT DONE yet.

“We are going to have to have a _conversation_ about your language, boy,” he says sternly, and the only person in the world who could honestly say they can hear the smile in his voice is Hawkeye.

“Wh _…ahh_ …what kind of conver…sation, Sir,” he gasps out when Phil resumes the firm, steady spanking.

“The kind that involves my belt, your insubordinate _ass_ , about an hour, and you being given something else to do with that mouth,” says Phil, his voice thick with what Clint hopes is lust.

“Language, Sir!” he jokes, and then is unable to bite back a cry of actual pain when Phil retaliates, forcefully. It’s the only time the spanking actually hurts. It’s all sharp tingling sting that make his ass feel like he’s been sitting on a hot stovetop, but which in no way threatens to break his control and push him into real pain, or tears. He’s glad. He thinks the intensity of that would probably kill him right now. This isn’t cathartic like what Tasha did to him, and has occasionally also happened since when he’s been in dire need of an emotional release he’s not capable of allowing himself on his own. It isn’t overwhelming or devastating in any way, it is only hot and stimulating and good, and it steadies him, and drives every last bit of nerves out the window, until he is in the end shamelessly grinding himself into the mattress and making small mewling sounds of need because he’s no longer capable of coherent speech. He is floating in a sea of sensation and need, and while it is maddening to his aroused state, it also makes him feel secure, almost peaceful. He’s so blissed out when Phil stops, he knows his pupils are blown so wide you can barely see the blue-gray of his irises. Gently, Phil urges him over on his back, and he whines a little at the loss of the friction of the bedspread against his aching cock. He just lays there for several long seconds with his eyes closed, panting and making small, incoherent sounds, which culminate in what can only be described as quite nearly a shocked, agonized howl when something warm and wet envelops the head of his dick and sucks. He slits his eyes open and then slams them shut again because Christ he doesn’t want to come yet but Phil has his _mouth_ there. With his eyes closed, it’s okay, he can manage not to go over too soon, because although he had been assuming that men gave blowjobs very differently from women, it’s actually a fact that it doesn’t feel any different at all to his dick. He groans and concentrates on long-division in his head. Mercifully, it does not go on too long, so that he hasn’t really recovered from the shock of seeing Phil with his mouth on Clint’s cock, and realizing also that Coulson is really _good_ at this. He dares to open his eyes again when it ends, and sees Phil sitting casually between his outspread thighs. He’s removed his coat, shirt and trousers at some point while Clint was lost in sensation, and his erection is a lot more noticeable in his snug boxer-briefs. Clint grips the headboard so tightly he feels the edges of the wood digging into his palms. He can only see one of Phil’s hands, the one currently tracing gentle circles on the inside of his right thigh. The whereabouts and intentions of the other hand are revealed when Coulson slowly but unhesitatingly slides his index finger into him. It’s slick with something, and Clint belatedly notices an open bottle of lubricant sitting beside them on a bedside table. He writhes when Phil withdraws and then slides the finger in again, pressing briefly against his prostate before pulling back out. This goes on for several minutes while Clint whimpers and squirms and gasps. When it’s two fingers, he’s reduced to begging.

“Please Sir, I’m ready. Do it. Fuck me. Jesus, I can’t….ohgodohgod….nnnn….no more, I can’t….I can’t wait anymore. Phil! Sir! Please!”

“Have you been good enough to deserve a fucking, boy?” asks Phil huskily.

“I…hnnn….oh Sir, please. I don’t know. I think so. Just….please!”

“You’re pretty when you beg,” Phil muses smugly, which wrenches a guttural moan from Hawkeye. He knows he’s acting like a mindless thing, but he doesn’t think he can wait ONE FUCKING MINUTE more. And then, oh god, oh shit, oh fuck, he’s flipped back onto his stomach and Phil gently presses the cheeks of his ass apart and there is more of the slippery stuff and he’s nearly sobbing because he knows Phil’s going to do it now, going to fuck him, put his cock inside him, and he aches for it but he’s suddenly terrified too, because Phil’s bigger than the phallus Natasha had used. A lot bigger.

He feels the soft nudge of the head of Phil’s cock pressing against his hole, and he’s suddenly really scared. He doesn’t think it’s going to fit. Thinks it’s going to hurt him, a lot. Thinks he can’t do it.

“Sir!: he cries in an agony of nerves and lust and uncertainly. Coulson goes very still, but does not pull away. “I don’t….I think….I can’t….”

“You can,” says Phil firmly. “You will.” His voice is deadly earnest, the tone of command that brooks no protest, and Clint forces his tightly coiled muscles to relax, because obeying Phil’s commands is, in the end, one of the easiest things he knows how to do.

“Yes Sir,” he whispers, and feels the prickle of tears in his eyes, though they do not spill over.

Phil eases forward with agonizing slowness, filling him gradually but inexorably. The stretch and burn of it, the absolute sense of being _invaded_ are both terrible and exhilarating. He hugs the pillow to his face and whines through his teeth at the burn, but Coulson won’t have it, and his head is pulled back roughly. He gasps.

“Don’t hide from me, boy,” he snarls, and pushes in another inch, wrenching something close to a scream out of Clint.

“Sir!” he cries desperately. “I…ohgod…I ca… _nng_ ….can’t. It…. _ahh…_ it burns. Oh _fuck_ you’re big. Please Sir!”

“Please what?” asks Phil, almost pleasantly, though Clint can hear the strain in his voice.

“I don’t know!” cries Hawkeye. “Please Sir, it hurts.”

“Does it?” asks Coulson, not stopping his advance.

“I… _fuckfuckfuck…._ yes!”

“Good,” says Phil simply, and _shoves_. Clint howls, his body trembling, hands scrabbling on the headboard as he tries to grasp…something….sanity….anything. Phil feels _monstrous_ inside him. He wonders wildly if you can actually be torn in half. He’s aware that his dick hasn’t softened one little bit the whole time, and now that Phil’s all the way THERE, he stops moving. He holds himself very still, and when Clint turns his head to the side, he sees Phil’s hand, palm down, pressed into the mattress, the gold of his watch face gleaming in the dim lamplight. After a minute or so passes, during which he whimpers and pants and tries really hard not to move, he realizes it doesn’t hurt so much anymore. After another minute more, he starts to think about the sensation of Phil’s cock inside him, buried to the hilt, and the aching sense of fullness and being possessed, and the scent and feel of Phil’s body pressing against him from above, and he can’t stop himself from rolling his hips up towards Phil a little. A surprised gasp of pleasure escapes his lungs, and he does it again, bucking up against Phil a little now. The mewling sounds have been replaced by soft, needy growls, and he cannot bring himself to care if he sounds like an idiot. The rigidity of Phil’s body while he’s allowed Clint time to adjust relaxes, and he lowers himself down onto his elbows, so that his body covers Clint’s and presses him down into the mattress. Clint moans softly as Coulson’s movement shifts the cock inside him, but this time it isn’t a moan of pain or fear. Phil rolls his hips forward a little.

“Ohhhhhhh,” whispers Clint.

“All right now, little boy?” asks Phil tenderly.

“Yes Sir,” he breathes in a small voice.

“I’m going to fuck you now,” says Coulson with finality. Clint gulps; Coulson pulls back and then _shoves_ in again. Clint cries out for him, because it isn’t pain at all now. The friction of the tug and press of Phil’s cock is maddening. He growls and pushes against him, and in a few seconds their bodies are slamming together. Phil fucks single-mindedly, as though he’s trying to fuck his way THROUGH Clint and out the other side. There is still pain from time to time, at a particularly vicious thrust, but Clint’s cries are not pain sounds. His cock aches like a sore tooth, burrowing need deeply into his belly and twisting around his spine like a serpent, sinuous and strong.

“Phil. Phil. Phil,” he gasps, desperate. “Please Sir, I need…ohgodfuckshitgoddamn…I…. _hnn…._ I gotta…. _nng…_ I need…Sir…. _fuuuuuckkk….._ yeah, do it. Fuck me. Harder. Please. Sir! _Ohgod_ ….Fuck. Yes. Fuck. Do it.” After a few minutes of this, he’s dimly aware that all that’s coming out of his mouth now is “fuckmefuckmefuckmefuckme,” and he does not care that he’s reduced to monosyllabic drivel. Phil hauls him back by his hips, raising them off the bed, and hammers into him cruelly, while Clint howls with desperation. His eyes are screwed tightly shut against the intense sensations coursing through his overloaded body, so he doesn’t see Phil adjust his position a little so he won’t need both hands to support himself while he fucks into Clint like a damn locomotive, so Clint’s eyes fly open on his shocked cry of pleasure when Phil’s hand closes tightly around his dick. It squeezes, slides, pumps up and down slowly while Clint shudders and almost sobs with pleasure.

“Sir…I’m gonna come Sir, please,” he pants, his voice frantic as he feels pressure building and coiling insidiously through his body, pulling him towards losing all semblance of control, which he actually thinks he lost as soon as Phil opened the door.

“With me,” Phil growls, leaning close and spilling his need-roughened voice into Clint’s ear like warm sweet molasses. Clint feels his toes curl as he senses the older man’s rhythm falter, as Phil’s hands dig convulsively into his hips and he gasps Clint’s name. Feeling the warm rush of his handler’s release inside him is the final straw, and Clint comes, howling, over Coulson’s hand and onto his tasteful comforter, his fingers white as he clamps down on the headboard and shakes. Coulson’s shocked cry at the spasms inside the archer is music in his fevered brain. At last, the tremors subside, and they are both wring out and panting, bodies sheened with sweat, sticky with come and also a little bit of blood, which doesn’t bother Clint at all right now, though he’s aware he’s going to be really sore tomorrow. This thought is confirmed quite a bit sooner when Phil slowly pulls out of him and his insides cramp against the withdrawal, wringing another whine from him. Phil chuckles. Clint wonders if he’s capable of calling up a creditable pout, but decides he’s too tired. Coulson rolls him onto his side and hauls him close. Clint, to his surprise, finds himself suddenly close to tears. He has not felt so utterly wrung out and _owned_ in….well…..ever. fleetingly his mind wonders if this is disloyalty to Tasha, but as she so carefully pointed out to him before they agreed on this, it is apples and oranges. He stops analyzing and lets himself relax against Phil’s body. Phil runs his hand softly over Clint’s hair.

“Good boy,: he whispers, and Clint shivers.

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Thank _you_ ,” says Phil warmly.

They doze for a while, sort of tangled up together, until hunger rouses them both. Phil takes him into the shower and he finds the experience shakes him to his core as the older man treats him tenderly as though he is a fragile and lovely thing, and it pours into and fills up every empty reservoir of daddy kink Clint’s carried around since he left the circus. Phil seems to know this on an innate level, and his voice is warm and gentle and kind, his hands careful and attentive, and Clint feels himself longing to curl up at Coulson’s feet and stay there forever.

The practicality of this is, of course, absurd, and they’re ravenous when they emerge from the shower, whereupon Phil fixes them grilled cheese sandwiches and bowls of creamy tomato soup with goldfish crackers. Clint throws a handful of them at Phil, and shivers all over when Phil looks at him sternly. When they are nearly done eating, there is a knock at the door. It’s Tasha. She looks worried, and Clint feels a twinge of guilt when he realizes he’s been gone for almost six hours now.

She takes one look at the expression on his face, what they are eating, and the casual way Phil’s hand rests on Hawkeye’s knee and she smiles.

“Good. You’ve managed not to kill each other. Neither of you answered your phones. I got worried.”

“I’m sorry, Tash,” he says remorsefully, hunching his shoulders.

“My apologies, Agent Romanov,” says Phil sincerely. “That was insufferably rude of us.”

Natasha waves this away, staring at Clint with great interest. He knows he looks like he feels, fucked out and blissed out of his mind and dreamy. She looks from him to Phil and back again, a slow smirk spreading across her face.

“Was he a good boy for you, Agent Coulson?” she asks with a grin she can’t quite conceal. Coulson rubs his hand over Clint’s head and down his back again, and Clint sighs contentedly.

“I’m not entirely sure whether he was very, very good or very, VERY bad,” muses Phil with humor in his tone. Clint grins and sticks out his tongue, and it feels fantastic.

“You know, San Francisco is only about two and a half hours by Quinjet,” muses Tasha, and suddenly Clint’s entire future takes on a new meaning.

“So it is,” agrees Phil comfortably, smiling at both of them.

“Maybe next time we can punish him together,” she muses. Clint chokes on his soup and whimpers.


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please be advised that although this chapter contains acts that are consensual and safewords are negotiated, it does sort of skirt the edges of dubcon, in case that's not your thing

When Tasha had told him she had to be in Prague with Fury for a week, he’d  been kind of bummed. There hasn’t been a decent alien to kill in weeks. Things are in fact depressingly quiet for people of action like the members of the Avengers Initiative. Well, except for Bruce, who always gets happier the longer he gets to go between calls. He and Jane and Tony are still hard at work in the lab though, except when Thor keeps Jane too occupied to show up, which never really surprises any of the others. He thinks it alarms Bruce a little when Jane plays hooky from work though, because Darcy seems to confound him. Privately, Clint thinks this is hilarious. Darcy’s never careful around Bruce like every other female staff member and agent of SHIELD he’s ever seen interact with the scientist. He doesn’t know if all of them are afraid he’s going to be overcome with lust at the sight of them and hulk out, or if women are just more aware of the fragility of their bodies than men. Darcy harangues him, teases him, laughs at him, argues with him about everything under the sun. Darcy also brings him the tea he likes best and makes sure he eats and notices when he starts to get a headache and brings him aspirin. Clint doubts very seriously that Bruce is aware of this, because he’s possibly the most oblivious person he knows, except maybe for Thor when someone makes a pop culture reference.

He has no experiments to run though, being a man of action and definitely not science, so a week of Tasha off at some stupid conference with Fury is kind of depressing. When she forces him onto a Quinjet and sends him to San Francisco, he spends the trip up to the roof arguing with her (until she stops in the stairwell and shoves him up against the wall and spends a few minutes convincing him forcibly that it’s not because anything’s cooling off between them) and the first part of the flight feeling guilty about it. The second half of the flight he’s overcome with nerves. What if Phil doesn’t want to see him? What if their couple of nights together before Phil left were just a fling, and he’s put it behind him?  What if he gets there and Phil’s found a lover and Clint just gets in the way and has to turn around and fly home in humiliation? What if…..

What if Natasha’s called ahead to let him know, and Phil is waiting on the helipad on top of the San Francisco headquarters with his tie and jacket flapping in the force of the ‘jet’s rotors, looking up at the sky as they come in for a landing, a huge smile on his face, waving and smiling some more and actually raising up a little on his toes in impatience for it to be safe for him to run under the slowing rotors and open the door.

Clint ducks his head a little and hides his idiotic grin because it makes him feel like a dumb kid with a crush.

“Hi,” he says lamely.

“Hi,” Phil says back, not at all bothering to hide his own grin. Coulson, grinning for the second time in his life? His face will crack!

Then they’re in the elevator and Phil looks up, where a tiny black dot in the corner is the only sign that the car is under surveillance, and he recites some kind of a code out loud that includes his name and ID number and an override. Then his hand fists in Clint’s t-shirt and Clint wonders dazedly if he should get one of the people in the uniform design team to start sewing padding into the backs of all his shirts as a personal favor since he’s starting to spend an inordinate amount of time being slammed up against walls. But Phil’s kissing him and he loves it, loves the shoving and the explosion of his breath as he connects with the wall of the elevator, and the twist of his shirt tightening around his neck and chest, and Phil’s mouth on his, and the smell of him. He whimpers a little, and he doesn’t care.

“How long can you stay?” growls Phil into his mouth.

“A week,” gasps Clint, his cock hardening so fast it makes him giddy when Phil forces his head back and bites him, hard, on the side of his neck.

That night it is just as awesome as it was the first time, except that he’s not scared now, because he knows what to expect when Phil prepares him, when he takes him, slowly, carefully at first, and then hard like he needs it. They talk and eat and fuck and watch a movie and fuck some more and he sleeps like a baby with his head on Phil’s shoulder. Nastasha calls in the morning to see how things are, and she can tell from the unaccustomed shyness in his voice that they are, indeed, perfect, so she makes him tell her, in detail, about the previous night. It’s evening in Prague, and she’s alone in her hotel room. He can tell she’s touching herself while he describes how it feels to suck Phil’s cock for the first time, and what it’s like when Phil holds him down and uses his fingers to stretch him until it makes him whine, and what it feels like when Phil slides into him and starts to move. He can hear it in her breathing, and he’s glad Phil has already gone down to work because listening to her panting into the phone and knowing what her busy fingers are up to, and the throaty way she asks him what happened next drives him nuts, and it doesn’t matter that he came three times yesterday, he’s hard and hot and aching in his pants until he has to take himself out and then they’re having phone sex, only the sex is about him and Phil, which makes it seem like something dirty and voyeuristic and taboo.

“Clint,” whispers Tasha, and he can tell by the tone in her voice that she’s about to come. “When we’re done here, I’m coming there. And he’s going to bend you over and fuck you until you’re screaming for him, and…. _ohhh fuck_ …and I’m going to watch.”

“Jesus, Tasha, fuck,” he groans, and comes in his own hand like he hasn’t done in a long damn time, and he feels silly but it’s great too, and he knows she joins him because she whispers several really filthy things in Russian and groans so softly it’s barely a whimper, but when she’s working, Tasha is never as abandoned as when they are alone together.

“See you in a week,” she says menacingly, hanging up. She’s really mean sometimes.

The first two days are incredible. Phil shows him around the new San Francisco HQ, of which he is apparently actually the HEAD now, and aint that a kick in the pants? He’s absurdly proud of Phil, and gets a huge charge out of the way all the agents and staffers there treat him with immense respect and stop to let him pass in the halls and call him “Director.” The training facilities are good, so he works out, and practices with a new bow Phil has apparently been having his R&D team work on based on a few random comments he’d made to his handler ages ago on an op in Nepal when he’d pointed out a couple of really minor changes he’d have made to the design if he’d been doing it himself. And now here they are, implemented exactly as he’d described them, running his fingers over the weapon and pointing out to Phil how it slanted this much _here_ and how he wished it slanted that much _there_ instead, and how he’d have made it easier for himself to adjust the pull by doing this to that pulley and moving this hinge this many centimeters…..

It’s a work of art, and he loves it, and it makes him feel like about a hundred million bucks, and his aim is even better than before, which is almost not even possible.

On the third day, Phil has a lot of meetings, and that’s okay, but Hawkeye doesn’t really know what to do with himself. He goes out and wanders around San Francisco, but he feels a little at loose ends, so he just goes back to Phil’s apartments and watches TV until the Director of Operation of the West Coast branch of SHIELD comes home, looking a little stressed out and tired. Clint takes one look at him and jumps up to follow Phil into the bedroom, where he helps him out of his shiny shoes and his suit and rubs Phil’s shoulders until the headache he can see behind the older man’s eyes goes away. That’s a pretty good night too.

On the fourth day, Clint Barton is bored. He tries to find things to occupy him, he really does, but after a couple of hours of channel changing, half-hearted target practice, and less than two miles of the ten mile jog he meant to take, he finds himself outside Phil’s office door, knocking uncertainly.

He hears Phil’s voice say, “Come in,” and opens it, stepping inside to stand right by the threshold, feeling kind of awkward and uncertain.

Coulson gets up from his desk and comes hurriedly to Clint’s side, looking worried.

“Is something wrong, Agent Barton?” he asks, concern in his blue eyes. Phil often falls back on protocol when they’re inside SHIELD’s halls, not because he bothers to deny their relationship, but just because the habit is so ingrained in him, and he is a consummate professional. Clint doesn’t mind. He feels just as subordinate to Phil as his agent as he does as his lover.

“No Sir,” he says, hunching his shoulders and poking at a tiny imperfection in the carpet with the toe of his tennis shoe. Phil looks relieved.

“Then what is it?”

“I’m bored,” confesses the archer. “Can I….is it okay if I just…hang out where with you, Sir? Please?”

Coulson’s worried frown eases into an indulgent smile, and his hand comes up to gently brush the shaggy, disheveled tips of Clint’s hair.

“Sure you can,” he says, “but I have a lot of work to do, so you’re going to have to be a good boy and let me get it all done.”

“Yes, Sir,” he says eagerly, because just being here with Phil is enough, he’ll just sit over there on the couch and watch him work, and that’s a lot better than wandering aimlessly around HQ or even the city.

Or so he thinks. It’s ok for the first little bit. He likes watching Phil work. The older man looks so authoritative behind his huge desk, a frown of concentration on his face as he reads reports and files them, fills out others with his clean, neat handwriting. He studies test results and order forms and inventories, licking his thumb with the tip of his tongue when pages stick together. The way his fingers hold the slender silver pen remind Clint of the way those fingers feel when they touch him. The quick dart of Phil’s tongue on the ball of his thumb is tantalizing. The way his shoulders shift inside his charcoal gray, pin-striped coat as he reaches for or files away various papers make him think about how strong Phil actually is. He manages to drive himself right into a state that makes his skin itch all over, and Phil isn’t even glancing up to look at him now and then. Which is, he thinks, entirely unfair. The office setting and huge, dark mahogany desk, and Phil in his immaculate suit remind Clint forcefully of being sent to the Principal’s office when he was a kid, before he joined the circus, except Phil doesn’t have a big, scary paddle hanging on the wall. Why doesn’t Phil have a big, scary paddle hanging on the wall? Even sitting over here, on the other side of the room, on the couch that is lower than the desk and thus serves to keep the top of his head a lot lower than Coulson’s, reinforces the feeling. He’s getting disturbingly aroused by his own thoughts, and the just SITTING here, dwelling on it, and Phil sitting there so focused, so indifferent, drives him nuts.

He flops back deeper into the sofa with an exaggerated sigh. Phil keeps working. He flings himself to the other end of the couch and sighs again, louder. This time Phil’s eyes flick over to him, and he raises an eyebrow. Clint subsides, and Phil goes back to work. It doesn’t last. He can’t imagine that Phil’s doing anything so important that he couldn’t take a break for a minute. He wonders if Phil would let him blow him under the desk. Imagining this occupies his mind for almost another half hour, then he grows fidgety again. He shifts, turns a little, and flops to his back on the sofa, which is leather and thus creaks every time he moves. Which he does, about every ten seconds or so.

“Is there something wrong with the couch, Agent?” asks Phil dryly, though when Clint looks at him, Phil hasn’t even looked up from what he’s writing. He sighs. Again.

“No Sir.”

“Then kindly stop behaving as though it were made of thistles and be quiet.”

Clint pouts a little, and since Coulson has finally looked up at him when he says this last, he sees it. Clint thinks he sees the tiniest quirk at the corner of Phil’s mouth, but he can’t be sure. He’s quiet for a little while, but he’s too worked up and restless for it to last.

“Phil,” he says eventually, quietly. Phil ignores him, focusing on signing a huge stack of what are probably requisition orders. “Phil,” he tries again, with the same result. “Phil!”

“What?” asks Phil after a few more repetitions, sounding a little put-upon.

“I wanna suck you off under your desk while you work,” he whispers loudly, with a lascivious grin.

“No,” says Phil calmly, going back to signing.

Clint groans in frustration.

“Please?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Pleeeeeeeeeease?”

“No.”

“Phil!”

“What?”

“PLEASE??”

Phil looks up at him again, his pen still in his hand, tapping it against his papers in annoyance.

“I told you I had a lot of work to do today. If you can’t sit there and be good, you can go back to my rooms at any time.”

“There’s nothing to do there,” he says, and the whine in his voice almost cracks him up, but he’s trapped himself  in the principal’s office fantasy and can’t get out, so what the hell.

“There’s nothing to do here either,” points out Coulson logically.

“There’s you.”

“You don’t get to do me, Clint,” says Coulson, and this time he does actually sort of smile. Almost.

“Nooooo,” says Clint. “But you could do me.”

“No one is doing anyone. Sit over there and be quiet and let me finish my work. Listen to some music on your phone or play Angry Birds, or read a book, but BE QUIET.” The last words are forceful, and Clint moans a little, to himself. This could be so HOT if only Phil would stop being a stickler and go with it! He rolls his eyes in an exaggerated fashion and mutters to himself while he drags his phone out of his pocket. He tries playing Angry Birds for a while, but he’s beaten the game so many times with perfect scores that it isn’t fun anymore. He gets out his earbuds and puts the mp3 player app on shuffle on his 80’s alternative playlist. He loves that era. Frankie Goes To Hollywood fills his ears and that just doesn’t help at all.

“Relax, don’t do it….when you wanna come,” he sings under his breath, watching Phil from under half-closed eyelids. And ohhh yeah, he wants to. This is ridiculous. He’s way too cute right now for Phil to be ignoring him. He gets up from the couch and walks toward the desk, the music in his ears putting a little sway in his hips as he lets his body move with the beat, nearly dancing as he stalks slowly over to where Phil is working. He’s a great dancer and he knows it. The jeans he’s wearing today are well-worn and soft, and cling to him like he was poured into them, hugging his ass and thighs, snug around his increasingly hard dick. Phil’s watching him approach, though he doesn’t stop working. Clint stops in front of the desk, pulling out his earbuds, and leans forward until he can put his elbows on it, ducking his head and grinning up at Phil under his eyelashes.

“You could punish me for misbehaving,” he purrs suggestively, and wiggles a little, thinking about it. One of Phil’s eyebrows lifts a fraction, and he sets aside a form and takes another, making Clint huff impatiently.

“You’re certainly acting like you deserve it,” he says drily, without stopping. Christ, how does the man DO that? He’s being outrageous and he knows it, but fuck, Phil’s so fucking HOT right now, he can’t stand it.

“I know, right?” he agrees encouragingly, arching his back a little so his ass sticks out. Without a word, Phil points at the couch with his non-dominant hand and keeps FUCKING WRITING! Clint turns over and drapes himself onto the desk with a soft, breathy groan, putting his head almost directly under Phil’s face on top of the report he’s reading, and smiling up at him as winsomely as he knows how. “C’mon Sir, you know you wanna,” he coaxes.

“I certainly do,” agrees Phil. “You’re behaving atrociously.”

“Yessss,” urges Clint. “I’m being reallllllly bad. You know you wanna make me sorry, dontchya?” he whines eagerly.

“You wouldn’t enjoy it,” says Phil calmly, which frustrates Hawkeye even more.

“Why not?” he asks innocently, and squirms a little, still gazing up at Phil from his back. Phil’s eyes darken, though his expression remains completely collected.

“Because I would bend you over this desk, take off my belt, and whip your bare ass with it until you cried,” he says quietly, his voice a little rough, the only outward sign that he is affected. Clint whimpers.

“Not hearing anything I wouldn’t enjoy yet, Sir,” he says breathlessly.

“Then I would take out my cock, spit on it a little because of course I do not keep personal lubricant in my workspace,” he says, and there’s a distinct growl in his voice now, even though he’s sliding papers into files. Clint gasps, eyelids fluttering shut, his belly clenching hard with lust.

“What would you do then, Sir?” he breathes.

“I’d fuck you, without any prep work, deep and hard and burning, while you sobbed, and I wouldn’t stop, because naughty boys deserve what they get.”

“Jesus, Phil,” gasps Clint, the filthy threats coming from Phil’s mouth while he sits there all perfectly groomed behind his fancy desk in his center of power sending a vicious shard of need spearing straight to his cock, which is now so hard it hurts.

Phil really looks at him now, and Clint can see that his pupils have dilated so that there is only a slender ring of blue around them, and a faint flush colors his cheeks. He can’t see Phil’s lap under his desk, but he knows Coulson’s turned-on now too.  His hand slides across the surface of the desk and tangles in the hair on top of Clint’s head, fisting hard and pulling him a few inches closer over the glossy surface of the desk so that he can lean down until they are face to face. Clint whimpers.

“You have until I count to three to get off my desk and go sit back down like a good boy, or you’re  getting EXACTLY what I just described,” he hisses softly. He lets go abruptly. “One….”

Hawkeye loses his mind. Phil might mean the threat. He even recognizes that it would hurt, a really, really lot. Right at this moment, he doesn’t care. He wants, so badly he can taste it, and he wants to know what will happen if he doesn’t move. He’s being exactly as awful and snotty as he was when he was a rotten teenager, and even though he hasn’t been that rotten kid in several years now, acting this way is so….he doesn’t know how to describe it….it’s heady, and freeing, because the reason he acted that way THEN was because it was armor to hide his loneliness and self-esteem issues but NOW it’s just fun and naughty and he’s cared-for and it’s making him a little giddy. Also, he’s has never known how to step back from that line drawn on the ground. Nope. Gotta cross it every time. He grins saucily up at Phil.

“Two…”

Clint waves at Phil with his fingers, staying put, even though part of his brain is screaming at him to stop being an idiot before he regrets it. He doesn’t listen to that part, only the part that is reeling with thoughts of,

“Would he? Will he really? _Just_ like he said? Oh god, I wanna know. Will it hurt? Bad?”

“Three,” snaps Coulson, and without any warning at all, he stands up and drags Clint off his desk by the collar of his shirt. Clint stumbles and nearly falls on the floor, but manages not to, and notices fleetingly that the front of Phil’s trousers are looking a little too tight. Before he can relish this fact, he finds himself spun around and shoved facedown over the edge of the desk.

“Lock door,” snaps Coulson, “DND status, emergency override only.”

The DND stands for Do Not Disturb, and Clint knows that the only thing that can save him now is a real emergency. He can’t even open the door from the inside unless Phil lets him. His belly clenches hard and he is as afraid as he is aroused, which only makes the latter worse. He squirms and moans a little when he hears the faint rattle of Phil’s belt buckle as the older man starts to unbuckle it.

“Pants down,” snaps Phil. “Now.”

Clint’s fingers are shaking, and he fumbles a little with the buttons on his jeans, finally just pulling them all loose with a quick poppoppop, and shoving them over his hips and down, where he feels them sag around his knees, which are, ok, knocking just a little. Jesus, what the fuck has he gotten himself into? But at the same time, he’s thinking oh pleasepleaseplease Phil, do it, all of it, please. He hasn’t cried since the day Tasha broke him, and for some reason he desperately wants Phil to make him, craves the rush of relief only tears can bring, when they’re wrung from him by someone he loves. Loves? Yeah, ok, he can own that. It isn’t the same way he loves Tasha, because they are different people and meet different needs in his soul, but he can be ok with admitting he loves Phil too. Especially because he realizes Tasha’s known it longer than he has and she’s okay with it too. He’s not wearing underwear today, because he recognizes that part of him was hoping for something like this. He hears the slithery sounds of leather sliding though cloth, then jumps a little in startlement when he feels Phil’s hand stroke once, gently, down the curve of his ass. He feels the weight of his lover against his back as Phil leans forward to whisper in his ear.

“What is your safeword, boy?” he asks roughly.

“Red, Sir,” whispers Clint. He feels rather than sees Phil nod shortly.

“Now listen to me carefully,” says the authoritative voice. “You do not get to use it because you are scared or in pain, do you understand me? You have earned this punishment and it IS going to be painful. You will only use it if you are truly in a kind of distress that warrants it. I mean to hurt you, but not to traumatize you. Do you understand the difference? I can promise you that I know what I’m doing, and it isn’t going to harm you, but baby?”

“Yes Sir?” Clint gasps, transfixed by what Phil’s saying.

“It’s going to hurt _so_ much, and I’m going to love every second of it, you horrible brat.”

Clint’s eyes roll back in his skull and he almost slides off the desk to puddle on the floor at Phil’s feet, but dimly recognizes that this would probably only make things worse. There’s a clink that he’s pretty sure is Phil wrapping the buckle end of his belt around his fist. He senses movement as Phil draws his arm back, and then a bright hot slash of PAIN explodes across both cheeks of his ass and he sucks in his breath sharply at the immediacy of it. Jesus Christ, the man has a strong arm. His belt isn’t designed to do the kind of damage the whip Tasha had used had done, but Phil is SO much stronger in his upper body than Tasha that it honestly hurts nearly as bad, even though it doesn’t cut him. Well, he doesn’t think it cuts him. The second stroke makes him whimper and bite his lip. Oh god, it’s really really bad. What was he thinking? Phil’s dress belt is slender but thick, and blisters across his naked flesh like a brand. The third stroke makes him cry out a little, though he tries to muffle it by pressing his mouth against his forearm where he’s braced on the gleaming surface of Phil’s desk. Then suddenly, the faint scent of the furniture polish, the feel of Phil’s dress slacks brushing the outside of his left thigh, the overwhelming sensation of helplessness, it all washes over him and he relaxes. It doesn’t hurt any less, not by a long shot, but his rising panic vanishes like smoke in the wind and he welcomes it, lets it wash over and burn through him, scouring out and cleansing dark corners in his heart that men like him who kill for a living will always have. He muffles his cries and sinks his teeth into the ropey muscle of his forearm, and he writhes in agony under the vicious kiss of Phil’s belt but he _revels_ in it now. He becomes aware that Phil is talking to him in a low voice as he methodically and thoroughly leathers every single centimeter of Clint’s bared flesh, including the backs of his thighs, which oh geez oh fuck oh SHIT really hurts.

“When I tell you to sit quietly and let me work, you will obey me, do you understand?” snarls Phil, and it makes Clint wince in shame but even as he hunches and tucks his head, Phil’s hand strokes over his heated skin, scraping a little with fingernails and making him whine, and he realizes Phil isn’t truly angry with him, and that the snarl in his voice is thinly veiled lust.

“I’m sorry,” he yelps contritely, feeling about fifteen again, and Jesus it’s so good, even though he knows he’s going to break soon. For a fleeting second he is horrified and embarrassed by the thought of crying like a kid in front of Phil, but the next stroke of the belt, harder than ever, erases it and he remembers it’s what Phil WANTS him to do.

“You’re going to be even sorrier when my cock shoves into your naughty little ass when you’re tight and scared and not ready for it,” Phil’s voice hisses, and he groans loudly, raising his hips towards the belt a little. Dimly he understands that it’s going to be pretty fucking bad but that if he’s broken down first, if he’s softened by his own tears and submission, it’s going to be easier.

“Going to bawl for me like the naughty little brat you are, and every sob, every whimper and whine and squeal you make is going to make your sore little asshole clench around my cock like a fist and it’s going to feel so good to me, little boy. So good. I’m going to love fucking you while you’re sobbing for me, baby.”

Ffffuuuckk he’s never known Coulson had this in him, this filth, this deep sadistic streak, and it’s making him dizzy. Phil’s words drip into his brain like melted candy spiked with venom and he sucks them down greedily at the same time that the venom paralyzes and terrifies him.

“Please Sir,” he cries, and knows his voice is thinner, higher, clearer than it was before, but he doesn’t care, he’s lost in the role now and it’s gorgeous even though it’s also painful and terrifying. “I’m sorry!”

“Little boys are always sorry when they’re being punished,” says Phil, and Clint hears the mild humor in his voice. The humor doesn’t make him less mean though, and the belt licks viciously across the backs of Clint’s legs, once, twice, three times in quick succession on the same spot. He chokes on a sob, and hot tears prickle in his eyes.

“Let go for me, little boy,” purrs Phil encouragingly, and blisters his ass even harder, and how is that even possible? Clint shudders and yelps and squirms until Phil barks sharply at him to be still. He obeys, shaking and gritting his teeth, and even though he wants this, wants to let Phil break him down, it’s so _hard_ to finally let go. He has been tortured, beaten, battered and injured in the line of duty and never shed a tear. Tasha has broken him, but that was hell, and he never wants to feel that way with her ever again. This man has been his handler, his superior, his boss, for so many years, and being strong and steady for Phil has been part of his mantra when things go south on an op for so long that his training is getting in the way of what they both want right now. His cry at the next stroke is all agonized frustration.

Phil understands. Phil always does. Clint feels the agent’s hand stroke gently over his hair and the back of his neck, where it is damp with sweat. It rubs sure and steady down the long muscles of his back where he is rigid with his own inner struggle.

“It’s all right, Clint,” he says softly, “I have you. You’re safe. Let go.”

Then he whips his belt across the lower curve of Clint’s cheeks, hard, and his tenderness combined with the brutal kiss of pain is all it takes. Shaking with relief and agony, Clint feels a sob burst from his chest, and the tears burning at the backs of his eyes spill over, hot on his cheeks. Phil keeps the palm of his hand on Clint’s lower back, sliding it under the hem of his t-shirt to rest, warm and gentle, on his hot skin while Phil keeps whaling away at him until he’s doing it, bawling like a punished little boy, unembarrassed and completely unhinged. He cries, and he begs forgiveness, and he pleads for mercy, and it’s glorious.

“Puh….puh…please Sir,” he chokes. “I’m suh…sorry! I’ll be good, I puh…promise. Nuh…nuh…no more,it hurts! Oh please, Sir, please, it huh…hurts so much!”

Phil makes a sound deep in his chest that is part growl and part possessive pride, and Clint hears the belt fall to the floor. Phil’s hands stroke his back and the blazing, welted, swollen skin of his backside, which feels about twice its normal size and throbs in time with Clint’s pounding heart. He wants to hurl himself into Phil’s arms and be hugged and petted until he stops crying, but when he tries to stand, Phil’s strong hand splays against his back and presses him down.

“We’re not finished,” he says softly, menacingly, and Clint feels his belly clench in fear. He isn’t sobbing out loud now that the whipping has stopped, but his tears still flow freely, and faster, when he realizes what’s going to happen now.

“Please Sir,” he whimpers, crying harder in fear, even though he realizes he’s so hard he may come all over Phil’s shiny desk any second. “Oh please no. I’ll never be bad again, I promise. Please don’t do it, don’t fuck my ass Sir, please, I’m sorry! I’ll be good!”

Phil’s finger, wet with what Hawkeye assumes to be his own spit, jabs at his entrance and spears into him roughly. He yelps at the intrusion, which doesn’t hurt really, but is startling and scary because of what it presages. Phil pumps it in and out of him a couple of times, then takes it out. Clint feels the splat of something warm and wet on his hole, knows that it’s Phil’s spit, and he shudders, panting and crying in fear and pain and agonized need. He desperately doesn’t want Phil to fuck him like he said he would, and he desperately hopes that Phil _will._ The finger shoves into him again, coating him with spit, and Clint hopes frantically that it’s enough, that Phil isn’t going to tear him up and damage him. His tears are real, and frightened. He’s close to panic again, because Phil’s only lubricating him a little, not stretching him, and his dick isn’t exactly small.

“Shh,” says Phil quietly, calmly, his voice a life preserver that Clint grabs onto like he’s drowning. “It’s okay, boy. Let go. Trust me.”

“I do,” cries Clint though his tears. “But I’m scared!”

“I know, baby,” says Phil, and the finger in him angles up, presses on his prostate and makes Clint gasp between his gulping sobs.  “It’s okay to be scared. It’s going to hurt,” (and oh fuck, when he says that, Clint doesn’t understand why, but his own cock jerks and his knees tremble and even through the terror he understands that he does want this) “But to whom do you belong, Clint?”

“You, Sir,” sniffles Clint, instantly and without hesitation.

“That’s it,” says Phil softly, slowly dragging his finger out. “You’re mine, and I’ll punish you as I see fit, but I’ll keep you safe, darling boy. Relax for me.”

His voice and his words fill Clint with exactly what he needs, the calm certainty of being owned, and taken, and his panic recedes again. He feels the blunt hardness of Phil’s cock pressing against his entrance, wet with saliva but no lube, and his tears flow faster even as his breathing slows from its frightened sobbing. Phil pushes in slowly but inexorably, and Clint whines in the back of his throat as it stretches him. It burns, and his body gives way reluctantly, for he is not loose and open and prepared for it this time.

“Oh god,” he cries out, and his hands reach out blindly and grasp the opposite edge of the desk, gripping so tightly he feels the edge of the wood digging in sharply. Phil doesn’t shove into him brutally, but it hurts anyway, and he knows he’s making desperate mewling sounds amidst his tears, and begging, but he also knows Phil isn’t going to stop, and this knowledge steadies him. Phil keeps his word, the good and the bad. He’s going to get this, be punished and fucked raw and sore, and through the pain he’s so turned on he wants to explode. It burns like a bitch, but he CRAVES it, and he begs for mercy secure in the knowledge that Phil won’t give it to him.

Once he is seated deep inside Clint’s body, the archer’s hole stretched tight and quivering and burning around his cock, Phil simply stands there for a minute, his hands gentle and steady on Clint’s hip and back, petting and steadying him.

“I’m really sorry Sir,” he says in a voice so small and meek it surprises even himself.

“I know you are,” says Phil, and his voice is warm with affection but there’s steel in it too. “But I’m still going to finish your punishment. Are you ready?”

“I don’t know,” admits Clint shakily.

“That’s all right. I am,” says Phil, and he drags his cock back out of Clint’s quivering, aching hole and then he SHOVES. Clint howls, and his fingers scrabble for purchase on the smooth desktop.  Motherfucking hell, it’s like having a hot poker shoved up his ass, if the poker were the size of a baseball bat! Coolly oblivious to Clint’s pained sobs, Phil fucks him hard and deep.

“Please,” Clint cries frantically, though even lost in the enormity of what’s happening to him, he recognizes that he doesn’t really want Phil to stop. He’s hurting him, but Clint can tell he’s not really damaging him, and the begging is part of it for him, he loves doing it, which he hadn’t really known about himself until today, but throws himself into it now, pleading and sobbing and writhing on Phil’s desk while Phil holds his hips still and punishes him ruthlessly. “Oh please, no more! I can’t take it Sir, it hurts! Please, please, please stop! It hurts so bad. I’m so sorry, I promise. PLEASE Sir, take it out, oh please….”

Phil’s voice is rough and ragged and brutal as he ignores Clint’s pleas and fucks into him harder.

“Hurts?” he hisses.

“Yes,” sobs Hawkeye, squirming and desperate, panting and sniffling and whining, letting out a yelp at a particularly vicious thrust. Phil makes a humming sound of pleasure at the sound, and Clint’s cock twitches like a starved thing.

“You want me to stop?” Phil asks him, as he drags himself back, back, until he’s almost all the way out.

“Yes,” whines Clint, breathless.

“Tough,” growls Phil, and shoves himself back inside the sobbing boy bent over his desk. Clint thinks he actually screams then, as Phil starts fucking him in earnest. The pain is almost overwhelming, and he’s lost in it, but he feels his body yielding and softening as Phil fucks him open, as his body slowly grows accustomed to the stretch. It doesn’t stop aching, and Phil isn’t being gentle, but the pain becomes something gorgeous and filthy and hot, not something frightening and too much. Gradually, it becomes just right. He feels Phil’s pelvis slap against his burning, punished ass, and Phil’s cock anchored inside him deep and sore and certain, and though he doesn’t stop crying, his pleas take on an entirely different tone.

“Ohhhhh god,” he groans. He can actually hear the smile in Phil’s voice when he responds.

“Talk to me baby, tell me what you need,” he says softly, and the fucking takes on a different feel. It is still rough, and deep, and he aches, but Phil’s hands on him are gentle now instead of confining, and he angles himself more carefully, not punishing but ensuring that his cock rubs over that one perfect spot with every stroke.

“Oh Sir,” sobs Clint, his body straining towards Phil now instead of trying to pull away. “Ohhh Sir, fuck me, punish me, I need you to.”

“Always,” growls Phil, almost a dark chuckle. One of his hands slides from Clint’s hip where his fingers have been pressing bruises into his skin, to pinch sharply at one of the many welts on his ass. Clint mewls and squirms, and his hands let go of the desk and steal behind his back, his hands grasping, and Phil takes both his hands in one of his, clasping them there at the small of Clint’s back, so that he shudders hard and sinks into it, and feel s so _owned_ that he can hardly put together a coherent thought anymore. He gives up all himself, offers it up to Phil and just lets go. It’s magnificent, flawless.

“Oh,” he cries, frantic, “Oh please Sir, I need to come, please please please I’m gonna…I can’t….oh god oh god…PHIL PLEASE!”

“Can you, little boy?” rumbles Phil, and his voice is tense. “Can you come like this, just from this, from me fucking you?”

“ohhhhgod,” groans Clint. “I think so. PLEASE!”

“Then do it,” snarls Coulson, his hips snapping forward and wringing another scream from Hawkeye’s throat, which is mostly pleasure mixed with pain. “Come for me, boy. Come _now.”_ He buries himself deep inside Clint and his fingers dig cruelly into the younger man’s hips and captive wrists as he makes an almost inhuman sound as he releases himself inside Clint’s shaking body. Phil’s words are all it takes, and Clint howls raggedly as his cock erupts under him, and his hole clamps down hard on Phil’s cock buried inside him, and his world goes white and sparkling around the edges as his orgasm shakes him to his core. He thinks he may even black out for a few seconds, because suddenly it’s a little later, and Phil is standing behind him, taking great ragged, gulping breaths, stroking his back and his sides and his punished flesh, murmuring words of pride and encouragement as he slowly eases himself out of Clint’s shaking body.

“Shh, you’re a good boy, Clint,” he soothes as Clint makes a pained noise, because oh GOD he’s really sore. “You were so brave, so good. I’m so proud of you. Shh, baby, you’re okay, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

A thousand aches and pains begin to make themselves known to Clint’s body, inside and out, and when Phil cleans him gently, he starts to tremble. Before he really knows what’s happened, they are on the floor, and Phil’s arms are around him as he shudders and proceeds to come very definitely apart at the seams. Phil cradles and rocks him while he cries brokenly with his face buried in Phil’s neck, stroking his back and whispering ridiculous endearments and compliments until finally Clint starts to snicker through his tears and then he’s not crying at all, he’s kissing the silly words out of Phil’s mouth and they are leaning back against the window, both with their pants tangled around their ankles, laughing like loons.

“Oh Christ, we’re a mess,” gasps Clint, wincing as the carpet scrapes and prickles on his sore backside. Phil agrees, chuckling, and helps Clint to his feet. They both stagger, and clutch each other, laughing harder. Clint finds his legs won’t quite support him yet, so Phil eases him into his desk chair while he restores himself to come semblance of order, then helps Hawkeye stand up again and affectionately pulls his pants up and helps pull them slowly over Clint’s welts. His jeans feel like sandpaper on his ass, and he squirms a little, to make them rub.

“Greedy slut,” says Coulson, noticing what Clint’s up to.

“Yes Sir,” says Clint unrepentantly, because now that he’s not a wreck anymore, he feels like he’s flying. Everything hurts, but he feels so fucking good he wants to stick his head out this 24th story window and scream it into the wind for everybody in the world to hear. He grabs Phil’s suit lapels and kisses him gleefully, hungrily, biting at Phil’s bottom lip and slurping on his tongue like he’s candy, and making Phil laugh harder.

“Loon,” he chuckles affectionately. “Now what do you say we go out for hot dogs and visit the seals at the wharf?”

Clint bounces a little, because it turns out the little boy inside isn’t gone for the day at all.

“Okay,” he says excitedly. Then he frowns a little. “But don’t you have work to do, Sir?”

Phil ruffles his hair and turns to restore some semblance of order to his desk. Clint sees his own tears and snot and come marring the shiny surface and blushes. Phil smiles a little evilly at him.

“Some things would probably tax the aplomb of even my cleaning crew, and they’re used to getting blood out of practically everything,” he says with a very un-Phil-like grin, in that it is wicked and self-satisfied and, for lack of a better term, naughty. “And I suddenly find myself _perishingly_ hungry, and this office entirely too small. I’m the boss. If I can’t take a few hours off when I want to, what good is my new title anyway?”

Clint rolls his eyes a little, because that was what his entire _point_ was in the first place, but if Phil had agreed with him before, he wouldn’t be soaring on this awesome endorphin high right now, so that’s okay.

Phil swings his arm over Clint’s shoulders and pulls him in for a hug, steering them towards the door as he utters the phrases which will unlock it.

“Let’s go get you a jacket, boy,” he says, planting a kiss on the top of Clint’s head. “The wind can be a little chilly on the wharf.”

Clint doesn’t think about what he’s saying, the words just spill from him naturally, like breathing.

“Yes, Master.”

Phil Coulson’s eyes shine like the stars. He pulls Clint’s head close to his own, turning to press his lips close to Clint’s ear.

“You have no idea what it does to me, to hear you say that, boy,” he says softly, his voice a breathy growl trickling into Clint’s ear. “And if you don’t want to find yourself taking another fucking a lot sooner than you’re ready to, you’d best be careful what you say.”

Clint whimpers.

“You wouldn’t Sir,” he gasps breathlessly, and then they are on the elevator, going down. Phil doesn’t let go, but keeps his lips close to Clint’s ear so that the cameras and recording devices won’t pick up on his words. He can’t, after all, keep turning off the surveillance EVERY time they get into an elevator.

“Ohh I would,” he assures Clint, who shudders and holds on to Phil’s arm to keep from sinking to his knees. “I would lay you down on my bed on your belly, and take my time slicking you up for me, easing you open while you whimpered and whined because you’re _so_ sore…”

“God, I really am,” gasps Clint, and is astonished to feel his cock twitch a little inside his jeans.

“And I’d take you, slow and deep, even if it made you cry again, and I would wring ‘Master’ from your pretty mouth until it was the only word you remembered, and I’d take your hand, and use it to wrap my own around your cock where it wept for me, and let you show me how you like to be touched, even as you cried and ached and trembled around my cock fucking you, because you’re mine, to use, to hold, to _own,_ so if you can’t take that, Clint, beautiful boy, be careful what you say.”

Clint stumbles as they exit the elevator, something he never does, and feels himself seized by a heady madness that he doesn’t understand, after what he’s just been through, but which he doesn’t resist either. He leans in, this time pressing his own mouth close to Phil’s ear, and breathes what he knows Phil hopes he’ll say, even though it’s crazy and he doesn’t really believe Clint’s that reckless.

“Yesss…….Master.”


	3. Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is really long, but it demanded to be, to do justice to the subject matter. I hope you bear with it, as much as I hope you find it worth the read. 
> 
> In which Phil has one hell of a surprise for Clint

The rest of the week goes by in what seems to Clint to be hardly any time at all. Clint finds it absurdly easy to slip from one headspace to another. At one moment he may be wholly and entirely the himself which really likes to shoot stuff and be up as high as he can get, and misses Tasha, and climbs to the top of the big signal tower attached to the roof of the new HQ so he can see way out over the ocean and sway in the wind (which Phil swears takes ten years off his life but Clint just rolls his eyes and laughs), and enjoys a cold beer after a long workout sometimes and likes 80’s music and thrash metal, and watches  Ultimate Weapons on the Military Channel because he likes to be able to speak knowledgeably about the newest and best rifles he outshoots, whenever a new SHIELD agent in sniper training tries to look down their nose at his bow. Clint has reduced more than one newbie to tears of humiliation. But only the ones who deserve it. He’s better, deadlier, more accurate, more patient, and just….well he’s just better, with his bow than any sniper with a gun. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass if he can’t do it from a mile away. He can shoot accurately hanging upside down by one ankle from a hundred yards up in the air in gale force winds if he has to. He’s just that fucking good. Then at another moment, with a look from Phil or the right pressure of the man’s hand on his neck, he’s down, squirming inside with eagerness for whatever Phil wants from him, because it makes Phil smile at him just that way, and there are a lot of things he’d do for that smile. He drops so fast and so easily into that submissive headspace that he’s starting to wonder how he even got by this long without it. Inside his head then, everything is simple, and peaceful. He cannot see the faces of any of the dead who live there, inside him. He cannot hear his father’s voice, drunk and roaring and angry as he reels down the hall with an electrical cord dangling from his fist, coming closer and closer to the closet where he hides, his skinny arms clutched around his scabby knees while he shivers in terror and prays that just this once, he won’t be found. The monsters never find him when he’s Phil’s. There is no hesitation, no fear, no pride or sense of self. To please another, he understands, is a gift, a grace most people will never understand but which some women and gay men seem to just grasp innately, even if they are not kinky, and who go through their lives with a serenity and satisfaction their detractors can never understand. How can they be happy,  staying home, cooking and cleaning, caring for their men? It’s demeaning, it’s subjugating. Bullshit. Phil never makes him feel like less of a person because he likes to kneel at Phil’s feet.  He recognizes it for the enormous gift that it is, to wish to serve and to trust enough to lay one’s self at the ground at another’s feet and say “Here I am. Take all myself, for it is yours, and I give it freely for you to use as you will, and I trust you to keep it safe.” Phil does.  When he talks to Tasha about it on the phone, worried that what he’s feeling might threaten what’s between them, he hears her huff with impatience over the long miles.

“Clint,” she says, a little irritably. “Do you have the slightest desire to crawl around on a leash behind me and lick my boots and call me Mistress all the time?”

“God. No,” he says, feeling weird. “I’ll get on my knees for you, and you make me so hard I could pound nails when you feel like hurting me, and I fucking love it, but it’s….not like that. I belong to you, Tash…but I don’t…. _belong_ to you. If that even makes any fucking sense.”

“Probably not to most people. Fortunately for you, I’m not most people. I’d find you creepy if you wanted that with me, honestly. I like bossing you around, and I fucking love the way you react when I bite you and pull your hair and use the flogger on you, and when I hold your head and make you use your tongue on me until I say you can stop and…”

“Tash,” he growls huskily, and she laughs.

“Miss me?” she chuckles.

“Mm. Come home. I’ll show you.”

“Yeah, can’t wait. Anyway, I am getting really fucking sick of having to reassure you that I understand that it’s different. You and I, we’re partners. We’re equals. I know that submitting to Phil and liking it isn’t going to make you stop liking the stuff I do to you, and it’s not going to make you stop wanting to do those things to me either. At least, I hope not.”

“Not a chance,” he assures her, and his voice is a little rough around the edges because he’s thinking about the things a whole lot right now.

“Then what the hell is your problem?”

“Jesus Tasha, I don’t know. When I talk to you on the phone and all of a sudden I’m thinking about the stuff I’ve done with Phil, _for_ Phil, and let him do to me, and how it feels like I…shit…like he owns me…and I feel like I’m being disloyal to you, because I wasn’t thinking about _you_ when it was happening, and shouldn’t I be? Shouldn’t I be thinking about you all the time?”

“God, I hope not,” she says feelingly, and he can’t help but laugh. “That’d just be creepy, Clint. Like, stalker creepy. I don’t think about YOU all the time. I think about work, and strangling Tony, and what I’m going to have for dinner, and how many of the random things I can pull out of Fury’s desk drawer I could use to kill someone, and punching Tony in the mouth, and when the next invasion or whatever is going to happen, and the places I’d like to go if I ever got a real vacation for more than a stolen weekend, and I hope Bruce is doing okay, and I recite passages from Tolstoy in Russian and then in Mandarin and Japanese and Italian and Portugese…well you get the point there, and about kicking Tony’s ass, and about boning Ryan Reynolds.”

“You spend an awful lot of time thinking about Star….wait what now?”

She laughs at him.

“Just checking to see if you were paying attention. The point is, you idiot,” she says fondly, “Nobody sane and healthy really obsesses like that about anyone, it’s not right. Look, does it bother you that sometimes I sleep with marks in the line of duty?”

“Of course not. That’s the job. It’s different.”

“What if I told you that I like it?”

“You….what?”

“Haven’t you ever noticed that I always manage not to have sex with the disgusting old creeps or the ones who look like Quasimodo? It’s my way of not feeling…like a two bit whore for SHIELD. When I was with the Red Room, there was never a question of how I felt about it. How I felt didn’t exist. But now, that’s different. Fury doesn’t require it of me that I do things…well, people…who I find personally repugnant. He actually doesn’t require me to fuck my targets at all, he just requires that I get the job done, and sometimes, that’s the most expedient way.”

Tasha is one of the most frighteningly expedient people he knows. He’s finding himself fascinated by this rather than repelled or jealous, so he listens in fascination.

“If I do decide to fuck a target, because I feel it’s the best or fastest or least dangerous way to get the information or cooperation I need, then Clint, the way I keep it from haunting me, making me feel cheap or objectified, it by letting myself enjoy it. I make it a choice, not a necessity. And…I get off on it. Fucking this stranger, this powerful or rich or dangerous man, and it’s exhilarating. Since you and I got together, I…ah….I think about you watching us, imagine that you sent me to him, because you get off on it, and that you’re hiding in the closet or whatever and watching while he fucks me, and it makes it even filthier and….well…”

“I am so hot for you right now,” he says feelingly.

“But I’m telling you that I get off on being with strange men sometimes.”

Oh. Well then.

“It’s…really a thing for you, not something you make yourself pretend so you can get through it?”

“Maybe at first, when I started doing jobs, I made a choice to MAKE it a fantasy, because I’m honestly not sure if it was…before. But no, I’m not pretending.”

He’s a bit nonplussed, because he thinks this should probably be upsetting him, and it’s just not.

“I’m having a hard time getting the image of watching you fuck another guy out of my head now,” he admits a little sheepishly.

“Doesn’t make you think I’m not happy with you?” she asks shrewdly.

“No, it’s pretty much giving me a hard-on.”

“Would it shock you very much if I also tell you that there’s a little bit of me that thinks what you’re…giving Phil…would be kind of awesome to experience? I’m legitimately not sure I’d ever be able to trust another human being enough to be THAT vulnerable, but when you tell me about it, it does it for me, and not just because you’re fucking hot and apparently the whole watching your lover with someone else thing does it for me both ways because yeah that’s true, but also because it sounds…kind of amazing. I’m not jealous, Clint, but I think there is a very small part of me that’s a little…I don’t know, maybe wistful? The amount of control I give to you is about as much as I think I’m able to give, and that’s a shit ton more than I ever thought I’d be able to give anyone, and I do love it. I’m not…sorry, or envious, that I can’t give that much of myself to another person, I don’t want you to think that’s what I’m saying, but the…fuck, I’m not good at this shit, I wish you’d just stop worrying this to death…the part of me that gets off on the….the…”

He thinks he can actually hear the discomforted blush he’s sure is blooming on her cheeks.

“The ageplay,” he says gently. And he sees what she’s getting at. They do not do it often, because it isn’t easy for her to set aside who she is and enjoy that role very often,  but the sixteen-year-old Natalia is sweet and sassy and bratty and easily embarrassed and wants so badly for her older and more experienced boyfriend to be proud of her, and is so very sorry when she’s bad. He throttles back on his libido because his imagination is running away with him.

“Yeah,” she says, and sounds disgruntled, which is usually how Tasha sounds when she’s uncomfortable. “Anyway, I guess my point is, if I even have one anymore because I don’t DO this, Clint. I don’t reassure people. I _understand_ a little what you get out of it. I am also NOT blowing smoke up your ass, and where the hell do you Americans even GET some of your sayings, when I tell you that I seriously do want to watch you with him because I think it would be fucking hot. Why do I care that someone meets a need for you that I’m not capable of meeting? If I could, and you went elsewhere for it, I’d cut your nuts off with a rusty spoon, but I _can’t_. It’s completely beyond me why people get angry at their lovers for HAVING needs they can’t meet, like people CHOOSE to be wired a certain way. Everyfuckingthing about our relationship fucking works, you asshole. It isn’t your fault that this one part of you needs something different from what we are together. You didn’t just wake up and decide one day to develop a submissive streak that craves more than being topped to feel fed. It’s always been in you, or else was created in you when you were too young to understand how events were molding you into who you became. Does nobody else on the planet get this shit?”

“Apparently not,” he murmurs, loving her ridiculously, because there just isn’t anybody but Tasha who would think all this was obvious.

“Jesus, people are morons,” she mutters darkly. “Whatever. What’s it going to take to get you to stop worrying about this, Barton? Because you’re pissing me off.”

“Hell, Tasha. I don’t know. Maybe…” he squirms, because despite the fact that she’s kept threatening to watch, and the thought of it really kind of does it for him, he’s a little worried that the reality of it might make her look at him differently, make her unable to feel right about letting him top her anymore, that seeing him so completely owned by Phil could spoil her occasional need to let Natalia out to play. He doesn’t want to spoil any of those things, because submitting to Phil by no means erases his desire for those things as well. He likes being a Switch, is truly comfortable in both roles, and is even honest enough with himself to admit that if Tasha did require a deeper level of submission than she does, he’d be okay with that. Those are all things he loves, and will not risk. Even though this…with Phil…he thinks this is something he _needs._ This doesn’t release stress or provide a healthy outlet for aggression or allow him to set aside his superspy assassin persona and step into other shoes for a while. This…this _heals_ him. But he also understands that Natasha is also starting to get really frustrated with him, and that if he’s going to let both relationships work, he’s going to have to find a way to share this one with her, because it’s not insecurity that’s making him worry, it’s that it doesn’t feel right NOT to share it with her. She’s part of him.  “Maybe I need to see you…well, _seeing_ it, and if you’re really okay with it, I can stop acting fucked up about it.”

“We can try that, sure. It’s going to be a little longer than I’d anticipated though. After the conference, Director Fury’s been asked to meet with some South Korean intelligence officers about some data they’ve intercepted on….well. Some data they’ve intercepted. I’ll accompany him as his secretary to watch his back, just in case the people they intercepted it FROM have gotten wind.”

He feels his heart sink a little at this. It’s been nearly a week, and he’d been looking forward to being back in New York, and her. She encourages him to stay a little longer in San Francisco, and he agrees, because if he goes back to New York not knowing when she’ll be back, he’ll just worry about it. He’s not stupid. Tasha has higher security clearance than he does, but any meeting with South Korean intelligence has something to do with North Korea, and those fuckers are crazy. Who the hell plays chicken with the rest of the world with nuclear warheads just to prove they’ve got the sack for it?

And then there is the third headspace, the one in which he is an odd mix of himself…and himself at anywhere from about twelve to about seventeen, depending on the circumstances. When they go out for ice cream or sit on Phil’s bed and play video games, it’s closer to twelve. When Phil punishes him for being a brat (which is often, because it’s too much fucking fun to stop), he’s older, past where he lost his virginity and no longer innocent, because it arouses him horribly, and though he’s still “little boy,” he’s not actually a LITTLE boy. When Phil fucks him while he’s in that headspace, he’s still young, but  no longer any kind of a child. And at all of those times, a big part of him also remains himself. He realizes that would all probably sound weird to anyone else, and confuse the hell out of most people, but it works for him. Oh god, it fucking works for him. Since it apparently really works for Phil too, he’s not going to dissect it. Not everything has to be analyzed to death.

Phil, utterly unsurprisingly, notices that he seems preoccupied. When he asks about it, Clint’s not even able to think about lying, or downplaying his inner conflict. Early on in their relationship as asset and handler, Phil had looked penetratingly into his eyes and told him that he understood that there would be stuff he couldn’t or wouldn’t be able to tell Phil, but that it was crucial to his being able to give Clint what he needed for Clint to never lie to him, even when the truth was difficult or embarrassing. He had promised never to ask for anything Hawkeye couldn’t give him, but would expect Hawkeye to give Phil everything he did ask for. He had, of course, been referring to answers, mainly about Clint's own physical and mental state before, during and after a mission, but Clint recalls that he’d read a little double entendre into the remark at the time, and had smirked about it, but now that he’s really able to be truthful about how he feels towards Phil, he can remember the tiny secret thrill the words had given him. It was pretty soon after that the dream had started. The one where Phil didn’t ask for more than Clint could give him. But it was close. So he confesses his trepidations about Natasha, and Phil listens to him wind himself up over it for close to half an hour. Finally he stops the archer with two fingers on his lips, which is incredibly effective, because every time he feels any part of Phil’s skin on any part of his, he forgets how to talk.

“Trust me,” says Phil. “Trust her, and trust yourself. Do you really think Agent Romanov and I haven’t been in contact throughout this visit?”

“Oh,” says Clint, but his body’s already relaxing anyway, because when Phil says Trust Me, Clint obeys him.

 

Four days later, Phil tells him in the morning that he has a surprise for him that evening. He’s careful to make very sure Clint gets the message that the surprise is for _him_ and not the kind of surprise one promises a child. Phil has meetings all day. He hands Clint a datapad when he leaves, after a short but hungry kiss that leaves Clint breathless, and orders him firmly to do his homework.

Intrigued, Clint fires up the pad and opens the file by tapping the screen. It’s a list of instructions. It is painstakingly detailed, and quite long. For some reason, it gives him a vicarious thrill of anticipation. It tells him what to eat (plenty of protein, healthy carbs, nothing on the list that might cause any kind of crash or bloat or indigestion, really the kinds of things he eats before a long stakeout. It details a list of katas and exercises he is to do at various times during the day. They will leave him centered, relaxed, his muscles warm and loose. It tells him how to wash, what products to use on his hair, his face when he shaves, his skin. Clint never uses moisturizer. He’s not a fussy person, and any kind of personal odor could give him away on an op. He wears cologne sometimes when he dresses up a little, but half the time he just washes his hair with a bar of soap. Personal grooming for him is a necessity, nothing more. Not today. Today he is meticulous, and follows Phil’s instructions to the letter. The explanation note beside the moisturizer item on the list explains that it will make his skin better able to tolerate the lash. Clint rolls the phrase around in his mouth as his hands smooth the indicated product into his skin, warm and damp from his shower, and his dick is more than half hard. “Tolerate the lash.” He huffs out a small laugh. Phil’s so eloquent sometimes, almost old-fashioned in the way he speaks. It makes the filth he spouts that much more titillating. He cleans himself, inside and out (flushed and embarrassed and really glad he’s alone for some of it) and clips and files his fingernails. When it’s almost time for Phil to be home, he dresses himself as instructed, in clothing, Phil has ordered, he does not mind having ruined. His pulse is elevated, his breath tight and hot in his chest, his stomach in knots, when he hears the locks on the door click, and then Phil is home. Unsure of what he’s supposed to do, he starts to go to his knees, but Phil stops him, makes him stand in the center of the living room floor while he walks in a slow circle around Clint, inspecting him. His fingertips brush Clint’s skin, his hair. He takes Clint’s hands, one at a time, inspecting his fingernails. He strokes gently over cheek and chin to check for stubble, appraises the clothing Clint has chosen (worn jeans, an older t-shirt, shoes he can kick off with no socks, no underwear) and nods.

“You’re a good boy, Clint,” he says softly, his voice warm with an approval that makes the archer’s toes curl. Everything he has done today has served to dump him most of the way into headspace already. He sinks gracefully to his knees, and this time, Phil doesn’t stop him. “Give me your wrists,” he orders with a smile, and Clint raises them, palms up, hands in loose fists, pressed loosely together. Phil reaches into his pocket and takes out his set of leather cuffs. He buckles them in place, while Clint closes his eyes and sighs contentedly. Phil makes him stand, and he raises one foot and then the other when directed, balancing easily on the other for as long as Phil takes to attach the ankle cuffs. He’s glad he chose not to wear socks. Without a word, Phil turns and goes to the door. Clint starts to follow, out of habit, but hesitates. He stands where Phil put him, because Phil hasn’t actually told him to follow. At the door, Phil turns back to him, and the warm flash of approval in his mild blue eyes fills Hawkeye with pleasure.

“Come with me,” says Phil finally, and Clint is at his side in an instant. They ride the elevator to the parking garage in silence. Clint is dying to ask where they are going as Phil ushers him into his car. It’s his personal vehicle, not his black SHIELD sedan that screams government vehicle by its very unremarkable sameness. Clint knows Phil owns a two-seater Cobra, in which they have sped down the coast with the wind in their hair, but tonight he’s driving his everyday car, a midsize Chevy sedan of no particular notice. On the outside, anyway. Under the hood, a big block 454 is hidden, balanced and blueprinted, and Clint knows very well the unremarkable-looking family four-door can fucking scream. Phil’s work has made him a target before and probably will again, so most of the time he elects to have the vehicle he drives be one which will call no attention to itself. But if he is followed or needs to follow someone, it’s too bad for them. The sedan is faster than the cobra. He bites his lip and squirms a little in his seat, but refuses to give in to his impulse to ask. He sees Phil eyeing him with an amused little smile and smiles back, a little nervously.

“I’m very glad we’ve had this time together, Clint,” he says warmly, reaching over and giving one of the younger man’s hands a gentle squeeze.

“So am I, Sir,” says Clint. “Thank you Sir.” He sees the white flash of Phil’s teeth as his smile widens in the dark cabin of the car. The sun has long since set. Phil almost never gets off work before dark.

“You’re hating this, aren’t you?” he asks, humor in his voice.

“If this were an op, I would be, Sir,” he answers. “You trained me yourself to trust my instincts and never follow blindly, and to get as much information up front as possible.”

“And what do your instincts tell you now?”

“That I’d love to know where we’re going, but I’d follow you anywhere, Sir, no matter where it is.”

Phil makes a sound in his throat that is enormously pleased.

“What a marvelous answer,” he says softly.

They drive in silence for almost an hour, finally entering a neighborhood that is more industrial than residential, and is quite close to the waterfront. Clint admires the big, old brick warehouses, dating from not long after San Francisco was settled and became a shipping center. He loves old buildings. They always have tons of vantage points for someone like him. For a second, his fingers itch for his bow, but he smooths them on the rough denim on his thighs and breathes in and out, slow and easy. They pull into one of the warehouses and Phil turns the car off. He gets out, and there is a longish pause as Phil pulls the huge old wooden doors closed, and latches them. Clint expects an almighty creaking and squealing of rusty hinges, but the doors are well-oiled and almost silent. He stays in his seat, for Phil has not instructed him to get out. The trunk opens and then closes with a thunk, and Phil is opening his door and holding his hand down for Clint to take. Phil has a black duffel bag over his shoulder. He stands up and follows Phil deeper into the big warehouse. Phil’s shoes make faint tocking sounds on the stone floor, with their leather soles, but Clint’s Vans are silent. Before they have reached the back wall of the warehouse (Clint is very good with spatial awareness and can tell they haven’t taken enough steps), the come to a wall with a single door in it. Phil takes out a key.

On the other side of the door there is a space that makes Clint’s steps falter a little. The floor is still concrete, but here it is painted a deep cobalt blue, and dotted with thick rugs. The walls, obviously newer than the rest of the building, are black. A large sofa and a couple of chairs form a sitting area around a wide, short coffee table at one end of the room. Tiny pinpoint track lights and a handful of candles offer a gentle, subdued lighting, and it is the rest of what’s in the room that makes Clint nearly trip over his own feet. Dotted about the room are sturdy apparatus, with each piece of which he is at least somewhat familiar. A black-painted, heavy, padded sawhorse with extra bits added for knees and elbows to rest upon is situated not far from the couch. There is a huge iron cage big enough for a man to stand in, as long as the man isn’t Thor, tucked into a corner. He sees a St. Andrew's Cross and a set of stocks. There is a padded bar hanging from chains in the ceiling. It has o-rings screwed into it in several places, six of them, enabling both the chains suspending it and the arms or ankles of the person attached to it to be positioned as desired. Sunk into the floor directly under the bar are two more pairs of o-rings, each with a length of chain attached to it. He shudders. It’s the bar to which Phil leads him. He stops under it, and moves to stand in front of Clint.

“Do you trust me, beautiful boy?” he asks softly, and his eyes are luminous in the glow cast by the flickering glow of the candles on a short table nearby.

“Yes Master,” breathes Clint, his whole body already starting to soften and relax. This is so awesome he can’t even express it. He’s been to dungeons before, in various cities around the world, when he had R&R time and was alone (the ones in Amsterdam are really something to see), but not usually private ones. He wonders who this place belongs to, but not strongly enough to ask. It’s perfect, and that’s all that matters. Phil closes his eyes for a second when Clint uses the title. Clint knows he likes the sound of it. He’s also familiar enough with the protocols of the lifestyle to know (and knows that Phil is too) that it is acceptable for him to call Phil this if he feels Phil has earned that much respect from him, without it actually having to mean that Phil is HIS Master. It is an honorific. With a collar, it becomes a title.

Phil goes to the wall and operates a pulley there, which lowers the bar a little so that it is about a foot above his head. This will lift his arms but not put any strain on them. Phil takes carabiners out of his pocket and one at a time, lifts and fastens Clint’s leather cuffs to the bar. He taps Clint’s feet and slides his shoes off when he raises them obediently. There’s one of the soft rugs under his feet, between the floor bolts, so that his feet will not get cold. He doesn’t attach the ankle cuffs to the floor yet. Phil taps the insides of his thighs until he spreads them slightly, so that his feet are securely planted a little more the shoulder length apart.

“Pull-up,” orders Phil. “I want to make sure it can take your weight.

Hawkeye lifts his hands (there’s a little slack where his wrist cuffs are attached and he has leeway to let them hang, or to grasp the chains suspending the bar, or to grip the bar itself. He takes hold of it and pulls himself easily off the floor. He can do as many pull ups as Phil wants. One handed, if the handler would like. The bar is securely anchored and takes his weight easily. He pulls himself up further, straightening his arms, until his upper body is above the bar, elbows locked. Partly he’s making sure he trusts the apparatus, but partly he knows he’s showing off too. Phil’s mouth twitches, but he nods at Clint to do as he likes, and crosses his arms to watch. His gaze is appreciative. Clint bends at the waist and slowly pulls the lower half of his body up behind him, bending his knees and tucking his head down as he rolls himself halfway over, then extending his legs at the top of the arch, freezing into a handstand. He can’t hold it long, because the bar isn’t anchored to anything, and sways a little, like a trapeze. He lowers himself slowly to the floor, Phil is standing in front of him.

“I think it will do,” he says mildly, and Clint ducks his head with an aw-shucks sort of grin. Phil just looks into his eyes for a few seconds, which Clint returns, because Phil finds it silly to require him to avert his eyes. (“How can you catch any of the signals I may want or need to send your way if you’re always staring at the floor?” Which is logic, for they are still SHIELD operatives even if they’re lovers, and the world is still a dangerous place). All his life, Clint has struggled with a tendency to be unable to stand still, but he’s mastered the urge as a sniper, and so he sublimates the instinct to fidget while Phil looks at him. Finally, Phil leans forward and kisses his softly on the mouth. Clint whimpers softly, and leans into the kiss, but Phil holds him back. “What is your safeword?” he asks.

“Red, Sir.” Phil asks him this every time they embark on a scene wherein there is any potential for pain or distress or physical issues such as loss of circulation. Clint knows Phil doesn’t think he’d forget the word. It is simply one of the rules, the protocols of negotiating a scene. Were they strangers, or only acquaintances, they would negotiate a lot more. Hard and soft limits – things you will not or do not like to do or have done to you, sharing of any known medical issues such as a heart condition or asthma, what implements will be used – all are part of the open discussion that should go into the preface of a safe and consensual scene. Clint and Phil have known each other for years, and the negotiations happened the day after Clint had broken into Phil’s New York apartments and thrown himself upon Phil’s mercy. Phil, thank all the gods there are, doesn’t have a lot of mercy.

“Good boy,” says Phil. He reaches up and seizes the neck of Clint’s t-shirt in both fists, shredding it from his body with a swift yank down and out. Clint gasps at the sudden cooler air on his back and chest, and lust pools in his belly at Phil tearing his clothes off. Phil slowly draws a knife from his pocket, opening it with his thumb and letting Clint see it. He kneels suddenly and Clint feels a tug at the cuff of his jeans, then the cold steel of the back of the blade against his ankle. Phil runs the knife up his leg, cutting through the denim with a rasping sound. He is quick and efficient, and whenever Clint shudders too hard at the heady sensation of the steel gliding along his skin, Phil pauses and waits for him to be still. When his jeans are in tatters, Phil finally cuffs his ankles to the floor, leaving some slack in the chains. Clint returns his feet as precisely as he can to the position Phil had placed them in earlier. Phil stands, nodding in satisfaction, and because Clint is reacting strongly to the knife, he spends a few minutes trailing it along Clint’s body, up and down his arms, along his collar bone, down his chest and belly, stopping short of his stiff cock, which has been achingly hard from the moment he walked in this door. Clint shivers and sighs and whimpers a little at the sensation. Phil presses the tip of the knife into his left nipple, slowly exerting pressure but not quite breaking skin. Clint is panting slightly when he stops, turns, and goes to the bag he has left on the table nearby. He zips it open and takes out a flogger. Clint’s belly clenches when he sees it’s made of stiff, shiny latigo leather. He thinks he sees a dozen falls. Latigo is stiffer than other leathers, and its impact against flesh is sharp and biting. Secretly, Clint is pleased, though he knows a lot of people find latigo too intense. He likes floggers, but most of the common leathers (standard cow suede, deer skin, elk hide, buffalo) feel pretty much like a deep tissue massage to him, or at worst an intense sparring match. He likes the bite of things that sting. He’s been punched too many times to find heavy thud as arousing. He’s unable to stop himself from squirming and making eager sounds in his throat at Phil stalks towards him with the implement he’s chosen. Phil’s hand strokes down his arms, trails fingertips down his throat, brushes around to his shoulders and down his back. He closes his eyes as the gentle establishing of a link between them that Phil is creating with his touch sends him even deeper into headspace.

The latigo flogger bites into his back and shoulders like dozens of tiny bee-stings. Clint drops his head forward to keep his neck out of the way and groans as the bite sings through his body. By the time his back is on fire, he is floating in a sea of sensation and ecstasy. He’s aware that it hurts, and he gasps or moans or cries out when Phil puts his back into a stroke, but the endorphins released by the pain combined with how deeply he’d already dropped before they even got here combine to send him almost immediately into orbit. He isn’t spaced out though, oh no. He’s acutely aware of every move Phil makes, of this flare of heat when the latigo bites down, of the scent of beeswax and leather, the creak of his cuffs.

“Oh God. Phil,” he whimpers, but not in pain. Phil’s answer is to drop the whip lower and paint Clint’s ass with heat. He hisses and moans and arcs his body towards Phil. “Yessss,” he sighs. “More. Please Sir.”

“God, you’re a pain slut,” growls Phil with approval as he muscles the flogger into Clint’s flesh with vicious force. Clint can only groan in agreement.

Phil uses the flogger on him until Clint’s body is sheened with sweat and his upper back and naked buttocks are covered with bee-sting sized welts and his skin is deep red and blazingly hot to the touch. He then switches the flogger out for his kangaroo hide signal whip, a four-foot long single tail made of 12-plait brown hide. It’s similar to the one Natasha had used on him in the dojo, but is shorter and lighter than that one. Phil paints his body with welts, but doesn’t break skin, while he vocalizes mindless breathy cries and whimpers and mewls of need and pleasure, for he’s consumed with the thought that it is PHIL doing this to him, Phil giving him this pain, this heady and devastating whipping. He feels so _alive_ as his body overloads on sensation.

“Jesus, that’s fucking hot.”

The voice startles him about halfway out of headspace, because he’d only mistake Tasha’s voice if he were deaf. She steps from the shadows, stalking and slinking towards him in fuck-me spike-heeled boots that are buckled with a dozen tiny silver buckles up her calves and over the tops of her knees nearly to mid-thigh. Her skin tight black mini dress barely covers her crotch, and her small waist is nipped in even more with a black leather corset that lifts and accentuates her lush breasts and emphasizes the womanly curve of her hips, which sway as she approaches.

“T…Tasha?” he gasps, because his brain is too clouded for him to think of anything else to say, and he’s dropped too deeply to pull himself all the way out, even if he’s startled by her appearance. She doesn’t say another word, but goes to her knees in front of him, taking his erection deeply into her mouth with a deep, smooth swallow, her throat muscles working around him. Tasha has practically no gag reflex at all. His head drops back forward as he moans in an agony of desire. He feels Phil behind him, and his head is yanked back by his hair.

“God!” he cries desperately when Phis leans in close.

“Don’t you dare come, little boy,” growls Coulson, then shoves his head back forward with a rough caress as he releases his grip.

“Ohhhh fuck,” sighs Clint, hoping desperately that he is able to obey. The whipping continues, and before he’s really even had time to process the fact that Tasha is HERE and has been watching them the whole time and get freaked out about it, he’s deep under again, drowning in the drugging combination of Phil’s whip and Natasha’s mouth, both tormenting and thrilling him in equal measure. He has no idea how much time passes, but finds he’s able to hold back the orgasm wanting to build in his balls and burst down Tasha’s throat by focusing on the whip. At length, she pulls away from him with a small gasp as she takes a deep breath, and he whines as the air cools her saliva on his starving cock.

“Goddamn, Coulson,” she says breathlessly. “I knew I wanted to see this, but I didn’t know it would be this fucking hot. I can’t wait. You’re an artist.” She’s looking over Clint’s shoulder at Phil as she speaks, and Clint hears Phil chuckle, is aware that the whip stops, then Tasha turns her bright, sharp gaze on him. Her fingers slide through his hair and she tugs his head up to devour his mouth with hers, sucking and biting at his lips and tongue. He whimpers and groans into her mouth, and she pulls back, gasping.

“Jesus, Barton,” she pants. “You’re so fucking gorgeous like this. I could lick up every inch of you like ice cream. I’m having you now.”

With that, she reaches up to grasp the bar, and pulls herself up, her legs going around his hips. She’s not wearing panties, and she rolls her hips until her entrance, slick with heat, slides over the head of his cock and she sinks down, taking him deep. She snarls when he cries out at the sensation of her hot, tight little pussy clenched around every inch of his quivering, desperate cock, and leans in to sink her perfect small teeth into the side of his throat. His cry turns into a frantic, wordless plea when he feels Phil’s fingers, slick with lubricant, slide between his asscheeks and into him. Phil’s been very…thorough….the last week and a half. What’s happening now makes the reason that Phil hasn’t fucked him the last couple of days suddenly become clear. He is still pretty sore, but without the regular use of his hole by Phil’s fingers and cock, he has recovered a little, but also tightened back up a lot. Phil pushes two fingers in roughly, and Clint mewls at the sudden stretch.

“How does it feel, Clint,” hisses Tasha into his ear. “In just a minute, we’ll both be fucking you.”

“Jesus Tasha,” he gasps, almost a sob as the ache inside him rearranges around Phil’s fingers. A shrill whine sings in his throat when Phil scissors his fingers apart, opening him. “Oh shit, oh fuck, oh goddamn,” he pants. “Sir! Master! Please!” He knows what he’s saying to Phil, but far from being perturbed, Tasha’s riding his cock like she’s starving and he’s Death by Chocolate, biting and sucking at his throat and collarbone while she pants and curses softly in Russian.

“Language, Natasha,” says Phil in mock outrage, because he speaks flawless Russian too, and Tasha has just said, “Come on, you motherfucking sick cocksucking son of a whore, fuck him. Fuck him now, hurry the fuck up you bastard.” She groans at Phil’s words and Clint feels her pussy clench hard on his dick. He’s rocking his hips in time with her thrusts, and it rocks his hole back and forth on Phil’s fingers as he opens him up.

“Ohhhh,” he whimpers, and hisses in pain when Phil pulls his fingers farther apart.

“Something to say, boy?” purrs Coulson in his ear.

“Hhhurttttsss,” whines Clint.

“It’s going to hurt more in about ten seconds, baby,” promises Phil, which makes him shudder and Tasha gasps.  Then Phil’s fingers are gone, and Clint hears him unfasten his belt buckle and slide the zipper on his pants down.

“Pleasepleasepleaseplease,” he’s panting, though he has no idea what he’s begging for. His voice rises higher in panic and need when he feels the blunt hardness of Phil’s cock nudge between his cheeks and press at his entrance. Phil pushes into him with one deep, slow stroke, his hands on Clint’s hips right above the leather of Tasha’s boots. “Ohhhgod,” he cries. “Oh…. _nngh_ ….I can’t…. _hnn…._ Phil… _ohfuckfuck…_ it hurts, Sir, please!”

Phil and Tasha growl at almost exactly the same time, and Phil pulls almost all the way out and then back in, harder than the first time. The pain isn’t anything like being torn or forced open too suddenly, because Phil has prepped him well, it is instead the deep ache of having been used repeatedly and thoroughly so many times when he is unaccustomed to the frequency. That, and Phil has bent him over, howling and begging for mercy, and used him roughly to punish him once more since the first time. His asshole is a throbbing ache around Phil’s pistoning cock. Underneath the ache, heat like melted chocolate pools in his belly and deeper, down into his balls and crawling up his spine. He feels like he’s drowning in sensation as Tasha’s hot, wet pussy milks his cock and Phil’s erection slides over the perfect spot with every brutal thrust. His eyes roll back in his skull, and his whole body trembles. He knows on a merely peripheral level that he’s panting and whimpering and begging mindlessly. Tasha kisses him, and swallows his frantic cries and mindless babble as she whispers back to him between deep, drugging kisses.

“Christ, Barton. You’re fucking amazing like this. It’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.” He feels her stretch her body a little, which lifts her nearly off his straining cock, which makes him want to promise her anything if she’ll  just keep fucking him, but he’s aware she’s looking over his shoulder at what Phil’s doing, that she’s watching Phil’s cock fucking into him, and his knees nearly buckle at her throaty moan of approval. “Oh Jesus, oh fuck,” she groans appreciatively. “I’m watching him fuck you, Clint. Shit that’s… _ungh…_ that’s hot. Does it hurt?”

“Y….yessss,” he gasps, and feels her shiver.

“God, Clint,” she gasps back, sinking hard back onto him and rocking her hips hard against him, grinding down onto him, her body undulating and writhing against him, limber as a snake. He feels the walls of her pussy start to quiver, feels her turn her head a little to gaze at Phil, glassy-eyed and needy. “Phil,” she snarls, “Harder. Hurry…I’m…. _ahh_ …just… _hurry!_ ”

Phil growls in response, shifting his hold so that he grasps Natasha’s ankles where she has them wrapped around Clint’s hips, yanking her forwards towards him as he shoves brutally with his hips. This forces Natasha down harder onto Clint’s cock _and_ forces Clint’s hole down harder on his own. All three of them utter breathless cries at the sensation. Clint feels his balls draw tight, tingling, as Natasha’s orgasm begins, her cunt rippling around him as Phil yanks her towards him again, then clamping down hard while she buries her teeth in the archer’s shoulder and screams, writhing against him.

“Master,” he cries, frantic, because he doesn’t think he can hold it, he really doesn’t.  “Please…. _ohgod…._ I’m…I need….MASTER! PHIL! PLEASE!”

“Come for us,” snarls Phil in his ear, slamming his hips into Clint’s ass, the rhythm of his thrusts faltering as his own pleasure swamps him. His hands release Tasha’s ankles and reach around Clint’s pectoral muscles to pull him snugly up against himself. Clint’s head falls back onto Phil’s shoulder and he shouts hoarsely as a shattering orgasm rolls over and through him like a tidal wave, blotting out everything but the blinding, searing, exquisite release. The matching clutch and throb of Natasha and Phil surrounding and violating him drags the pleasure out like hot taffy, sweet and going on and on and on before it finally thins down and snaps, leaving him shaking and panting and struggling to force enough air into his lungs. It is only the fact that his hands are locked onto the bar and Phil is propping both of them up that keeps him from buckling and hanging deadweight from his wrists. Natasha lies boneless, still plastered to the front of his body.

“All right, beautiful boy?” whispers Phil in his ear.

“Nnguh,” is the best he can manage, which makes Natasha laugh. The reflexive clenching this causes inside her, still surrounding his slowly softening and acutely sensitive dick reminds him how to speak. “Oh _fuck_ , Tash! Don’t do that, you’re killing me!” This only makes her laugh harder, which wrenches an agonized groan from the depths of his soul, so she extricates herself and, staggering a little, goes to the table holding the bag, where she retrieves some Kleenex, returning to help clean them all up a little.

“The question still remains,” Phil reminds him, as he eases out of Clint’s melting body, wringing whimpers from the archer’s throat.

“Ahhh….guh! I…hnng…stand by my answer, Sir,” he gasps, and Phil chuckles.

“Am I to assume that ‘nnguh’ is an affirmative answer?”

“Jesus Christ,” mumbles Clint feelingly. “It’s going into the dictionary under awesome Sir.”

Together, Phil and Natasha set about releasing him from the bar and floor. They lower him slowly to his knees, gently chafing his hands and arms in case they’ve gone to sleep (his hands have, a little, because he’s been squeezing the bar so hard.) He stays where they put him, head hanging down, floating dreamily as they support him gently, front and back. He has never felt so warm and protected and content in his life. He has no idea how much time passes in this blissed out state, but eventually Natasha says his name, and he looks at her, clear-eyed but smiling a slightly goofy smile.

“You all here with me now, Barton?” she asks, searching penetratingly into his eyes.

“Yeah,” he says happily. “I’m good.”

“Okay,” she says with a nod. “I wanted to be sure first.”

First? What does that mean? She can’t be intending to do anything else to him, cause stick a fork in him, he’s done. She picks up a black velvet box, about eight inches long and three inches wide, from the floor by her right knee. She must have fetched it from the bag, as it wasn’t there before. It’s the kind of box jewelry comes in. She opens it, and places it on the palms of her hands, holding it out to him. Inside, curled atop dark blue satin, is an exquisitely gorgeous silver chain. It is about as big around as a pencil, made of smooth serpentine links so perfectly joined that it almost seems to be a single piece of solid but flexible silver. The way the sections fit together form a faint pattern, so perfect that the design seems etched into it as opposed to being made up of links. The pattern looks like a repeating series of vaguely tribal or Celtic knotwork. In the center, the sinuous chain comes together, joined by two stylized finials which are shaped much like raptors’ heads, and there is a ring through their curved beaks, joining them together. Dangling from the ring, there is a simple disk, inlaid with two crossed arrows, which are made of some kind of rich blue stone. Clint doesn’t know a great deal about gemstones, but it looks like that stuff they used a lot in ancient Egypt. Lapis whatever. Glancing to make sure he’s looking, Natasha gently turns the medallion over. Engraved on the back is one word. “Phil’s.”

His mouth goes dry.

“It’s my understanding that most people don’t know how this is really supposed to work, but I had an expert consultant,” she says, flashing a smile over Clint’s shoulder, Coulson’s brief chuckle is soundless, but Clint feels it vibrate through his suddenly trembling body. “People think it’s the Dominant’s choice to offer this to their chosen submissive, but if you’re really going to do it right, the submissive should actually beg for it from the Dom. Isn’t that right?”

“I…yes,” he says hoarsely, feeling light-headed. “But…Tasha…”

She pulls him to his feet, looking solemn. He senses Phil rising also, feels a faint sense of loss as Coulson steps back from them a few feet. The older agent places a hand briefly on Natasha’s shoulder.

“I’m going to give you two a bit of space to talk about this,” he says quietly, and crosses the room to the seating area to sit in one of the oversized chairs.

“Tash,” whispers Clint fiercely when Phil is mostly out of earshot. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Jesus!”

She rolls her eyes at him as if this were a particularly stupid question, which ok, it is a little. Tasha always knows what she’s doing.

“I’m giving you your collar so you can beg Phil to put it on you, if you want it,” she says patiently, as though speaking to a particularly clueless child.

“Do you have any idea what that means?” he asks incredulously.

“Of course. It means you belong to him.”

“I can’t belong to him! I’m in a relationship with you!”

“Clint, Phil and I have already talked about this. Our claims on your body and your heart  aren’t mutually exclusive. You have an enormous capacity to give to the people you love, and there is more than enough of that to share. Phil won’t step on my toes, and I won’t step on his. My claim on your time takes precedence, which might seem on the surface to contradict the concept of having a Master, but think about it. You and I will be working and living in the same place most of the time. Therefore, granting my relationship with you precedence doesn’t get in the way of your collar, because it’s just going to happen that way anyway. Phil is a busy man. It wouldn’t be fair of him to collar you if he was the only person in your life, because it’s my understanding that owning someone requires a pretty consistent time commitment. Right?”

“Right,” Clint agrees thoughtfully, though he’s trembling harder than ever because what she’s saying makes entirely too much sense, and he’s trying to prevent a wild, yearning hope from blossoming inside him.

“And he can’t give you that, not even if you moved out here to be with him.”

“No, he couldn’t.”

“This collar doesn’t have a normal clasp,” she continues, turning it over to show him a tiny keyhole in the back of the medallion, above the engraving. “Phil is going to give me the key to hold, not because he’s giving me any power over you. I won’t do that. Be sure of that. It’s to show that he trusts me with it, and so that the collar will never come between you and me, I have the power to take it off when we need it to be out of the picture, though we did make sure to choose a design you can pretty much wear all the time without it being obvious what it means.”

“Y…you and Phil chose this…together?”

“Yes,” she says softly. “He wanted it that way, wanted you to know that it was something he and I chose for you together…not just the piece of jewelry, but the choice of offering it to you. And I wanted to be the one to give it to you, because I want you to know that I want you to have it. Most of the time when you’re able to be with Phil, it will be when I’m busy. I’m really good at undercover work and at working with Fury, so I’m going to keep having more assignments than the rest of the Avengers most of the time. That means I won’t step on Phil’s ownership of you when you’re with him. Well, except when we do stuff like tonight because I really, really hope we will. It was fucking amazing.”

“Pretty amazing for me too,” says Clint, a little dazed, and unable to take his eyes off the gorgeous collar. His lifts a trembling hand, fingertips longing to touch it, see if it’s real. “Tasha,” he says breathlessly, “are you sure?”

“Yes,” she says simply, and there is nothing but truth in her eyes. “Take your collar from me, Clint. I’m giving it to you with my blessing. It’s my gift to you, for being the best goddamn thing that’s ever happened to me. And you know I hate this sappy shit, so go beg your Master to put it on you before my brain starts to bleed.”

Though he is naked, he steps to her, sliding his hands through the ruby silk strands of her hair. He fists his hands in it and pulls her to him, kissing her deeply, gratefully, hungrily. She’d hate it if he added more sap to what has already started to make her twitchy, so he just kisses her, hard and long, with lips and teeth and tongues, then he takes the box from her and crosses the room to where Phil sits waiting. Phil is motionless in the chair, with every outward appearance of relaxation, but Clint sees the fine trembling in his hand where it rest on his knee, mirroring the trembling in Clint’s own body. He sinks to his knees in front of Phil’s chair, letting the box rest on his lap and bowing his head. Quietly, he waits. There is a long pause during which he begins to wonder if he’s doing this right, but finally he feels a gentle tap on his shoulder that is Phil giving him permission to speak. He’s never done this before, only seen and heard about it. He’s so nervous he could die, and is desperately afraid he’s going to say something monumentally dumb. He draws a deep, shuddering breath and looks up at Phil though his eyelashes, feeling very shy and uncertain. It’s up to him to do this though, so he just dives the hell in like he does most everything else.

“Wh…ah,” he clears his throat when he finds it hard to speak. “When Tasha sent me to you that first night,” he begins, falteringly, “I didn’t have any idea what to expect. I knew I wanted you, that I had dreamed about being with you for a really long time. In…um…in my dream, you acted just a little bit like the sort of lover I hardly dared to hope you’d be. I think even my own subconscious didn’t dare hope you’d want to be more than that, more than the little bit rough and forceful you were in the dream. I couldn’t believe it when you turned out to want all the same things I wanted, but would probably never have been brave enough to tell you. I considered myself fortunate to have found a taste of It with Tasha. I…well, I expected not much more than a one-night stand with you, hoping it would fulfill my curiosity and then we could both move on from it, hopefully not disappointed.”

“I certainly wasn’t disappointed,” says Phil with gentle humor.

“Me either,” agrees Clint fervently. “You…Phil…you’re everything I needed and couldn’t express. You are exactly as forceful and brutal and kind and gentle as I need you to be. You take all the last little bits of baggage I had hidden away too far down to be reached and you make me clean and safe and whole. Making….making you happy, pleasing you, serving you….that makes me so happy I can’t imagine ever not doing it anymore. Phil….Sir….. _Master…_ ” he says, breathless and terrified. “Please, please Sir, please will you allow me to wear your collar?” He squeezes his eyes tight shut while he begs at the last, afraid to see the look on Phil’s face. The box is lifted from his nerveless fingers, and suddenly Phil is on his knees too, facing him. He opens his eyes and dares to look anxiously at the handler’s face. Phil’s expression is reverent, a little awed, and luminous with happiness.

“Clint, my beautiful boy,” he whispers feelingly. “I would be honored.”

He takes a key from his pocket, a tiny silver key no longer than Natasha’s pinkie fingernail, and unlocks the medallion. Clint bows his head forward, offering his neck to Phil, and his throat clogs with emotion. His eyes prickle with tears, and he knows he’s smiling like an idiot, but he doesn’t care. Phil must grasp the chain in his hands for a while first, because it feels warm and alive when it slides around his neck. He sighs, deeply satisfied, when Phil runs the ring back through the hawks’ beaks and turns the key in its tiny secret lock, binding the collar to his neck so that of his own accord he cannot remove it. He knows his eyes are shining when he looks at Phil. Phil’s eyes shine back. The medallion rests in the hollow of his throat, in exactly the perfect spot. It is exactly the right thing, so beautiful that no one would ever question  why he doesn’t take it off. And he doesn’t plan to, unless it’s truly necessary. Phil leans in and kisses him, reverently, passionately, and Clint kisses him back, making small eager sounds in the back of his throat. Phil pulls back, and his strong, square fingertips touch the pendant and rub gently along the smooth serpentine of the heavy chain.

“Mine,” he whispers with deep satisfaction. Clint sighs joyously at the sound of the word, and his response is one word also, but it is everything.

“Master.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The phrase to "blow smoke up [someone's] ass" actually comes from a widely held practice and belief from the late 1700's to early 1800's that maintained that a tobacco smoke enema could revive a drowning victim. I am not making this up. A tube was inserted into the rectum, attached to a fumigator and bellows, and tobacco smoke was pumped, literally, up the person's ass. As the procedure fell out of favor and out of practice because it was, for lack of a better phrase, complete bullshit, it came to be a metaphor for saying or doing something which is useless or complete bullshit.


	4. Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is actually the first part of what was going to be chapter four. It's turning into an enormous beast of a chapter, so I'm having to divide it up. Here's the first part, in which Phil, Clint and Natasha have to mix business with pleasure and Phil Coulson doesn't like it one bit. The scene in this chapter is pretty intense, so if relatively hardcore BDSM bothers you, skip this one.

Avengers. Assemble! Briefing at oh seven thirty.

The call comes at ten minutes to seven in the morning. Hawkeye has no objection to getting up early in the morning, if it’s for a good reason. Good reasons include things like morning sex with Natasha or Phil (or both, except that hasn’t happened yet but yeah um…yum), waffles, sitting on the beach to watch the sun rise if you haven’t been to bed yet (New York has crappy beaches so that one hasn’t happened here, but it doesn’t suck in Italy at ALL), catching an early flight to get to San Fancisco before lunch, global emergencies that aren’t annoying (he’s still pissed Fury woke them all up at 5 a few weeks ago to go stop an invasion by an unknown alien force in Zaire. They should have had a clue. Who the fuck invades Zaire? The aliens had turned out to be six inches tall and travelling in what turned out to be their version of a Winnebago and were trying to find something called the Clart Singularity Resort, which is, of course, in a different galaxy). Fucking Fury.

He groans and pulls his pillow over his head at the sound of the director’s voice barking through Coms. He has no desire for a briefing before nine in the morning. He’s perfectly capable of being awake and alert at any hour, but he’d stayed up way too late talking to Phil on the phone. Snatches of the conversation drift through his sluggish brain like smoke; “Touch yourself Clint….I want you to think about me fucking you, Clint….bending you over my desk….you’ve been so _very_  bad, haven’t you, beautiful boy….the next time I see you I’m going to take off all your clothes, pull you over my lap and spank you with this new paddle I’ve got until you can’t sit comfortably for a week….Ohhh my pet, my darling boy, my adorable brat, It’s going to hurt you _so_ very much…. Imagine it, Clint…my cock splitting you open, pounding into you, hurting you, violating you, owning you…can you come for me, baby? Do it, come for me, come now….”

Jesus. He groans louder, hips rolling as he rubs himself against the sheets. Natasha, who always wakes up instantly and fully alert, is watching him with great interest.

“You’re going to get some interesting looks, walking into the briefing with a boner like that,” she says with a smirk, throwing back the sheet to roll out of bed. His arm snakes out and snags her around the waist, pulling her back to him and under him as he rolls onto her and then into the warm heat of her body. They’re always ready for each other. She bites his lip when he leans in to kiss her. “Clint, we have a briefing. We’re going to…. _ohhfuck_ that’s nice…going to be late.”

“Not that late,” he mutters, nibbling at her throat, his hand sliding between them to press his thumb to her clit. “This isn’t going to take long.”

They’re only about five minutes late, but it’s pretty clear that nobody sitting around the conference table has any illusions at all about why. Tony shoots Clint two thumbs up. Thor smiles at them knowingly. Bruce shakes his head and hides his smile behind his coffee mug. Maria and Steve both look disapproving. Fury looks pissed. Fury always looks pissed though, so Clint ignores him and snags coffee and an extremely healthy cream cheese Danish from the cart that always seems to be present for these briefings, yet he never sees anybody filling it.

“AS I was saying,” continues Fury, turning his back on them as they slide into their seats and indicating the map he’s called up on the holo screen. “The kidnappings have been occurring for about the last two years, from locations across the globe, and…”

“Excuse me, Director,” says Steve, who actually _raises his hand_ , although to give the guy credit, at least he doesn’t wait to be called on anymore! “But two YEARS? Authorities have let this go on for two years and nobody’s done anything about it?”

“The incidents weren’t connected until a great deal more recently than that,” says Fury, who never seems to  get quite as annoyed with Cap as he does with anybody else.

“More to the point,” says Tony, “Why us? It’s not that I don’t hate the idea of people getting kidnapped, but it doesn’t really sound like a job for the Avengers.”

“Do you think we’re too good to help regular people just because we have POWERS?” demands Steve ominously.

“No,” says Tony, throwing a crumpled napkin at Steve and glaring. “I’m just saying it sounds like something the regular authorities can handle, or at least some of SHIELD’s normal divisions.”

“That’s actually a good point,” says Bruce. “Why us?”

Clint munches Danish and ignores all the by-play. It’s the same thing every time. They’ll bicker, and Fury will finally have to raise his voice because he can’t finish the briefing, and they’ll bicker some more about the plan, and Fury will yell, and it will take twice as long as it ought to for them to get all the information about the incident, and then they’ll finally suit up and ship out and save the day again. He wishes Fury would just skip the briefings, deliver info packets to everybody’s rooms, fire up a Quinjet, and just let them go take care of shit. But he’s got that irritating control issue going on, and insists on turning them into a well-oiled machine, a team of efficient global problem solvers. The stupid thing is, they ARE a well-oiled machine, and the only reason these briefings are so full of shit is that all of them hate sitting here waiting for Fury to make his speech and go through his spiel when they’re perfectly capable of just DOING this.

“Ordinarily I would agree,” says Fury with exactly no patience at all in his voice. “But something has come to light that none of the local authorities investigating the individual cases ever discovered, and which wasn’t noticed by Interpol or other global task forces until the files were sent to me asking SHIELD to take a look. The people who have been abducted are all believed to have abilities. Most of them are minor, and I believe some of the cases are probably unconnected or mistakes, but it looks like some person or persons is collecting people with supernatural abilities, and that does not bode well. This is why I’m calling you in. The inclusion of abilities into the mix takes this case to a much more disturbing level than abducting innocent people from their homes and families, and that is disturbing enough.”

“How old are the people who have been kidnapped?” asks Bruce quietly.

“Their ages range from twelve to fifty seven.”

“They have abducted children?” growls Thor, half-rising from his seat like he’s ready to just blast out the window and go kick someone’s ass right now. Which he probably would, if he knew where they were going.

“Yeah, not okay,” says Tony darkly.

There’s no more bickering.

“As these events are international, this is a multi-pronged investigation,” says Fury, who seems almost a little bit happy since everybody’s shut up and is now listening closely. “Thor, I want you and Captain America to head to Cairo. We believe we’ve located one of their holding facilities there. You’ll coordinate with Agent Mubarak on the ground. It’s believed the facility’s countermeasures represent a level of hazard to our operatives and surrounding civilian populations that require advanced conflict resolution.”

“You’re advanced conflict resolution now, Thor,” whispers Clint. Thor’s mouth quirks up in a smile.

“I believe he means he requires the captain and I to go in and kick ass,” he whispers back. Clint’s eyebrows go up in astonishment.

“You’re really picking up on covert speak, dude,” he says admiringly.

Fury continues as though he hasn’t heard them, even though everybody has.

“Stark, I need you and Dr. Banner to fly to Okinawa and rendezvous with one of our scientists there by the name of Dr. Owen Murphy.”

“I’ve heard of him,” says Bruce. “Geneticist, right?”

“That is correct. Operatives have had a lab hidden under a farm in the countryside outside the city under surveillance for the past two weeks, but will be unable to infiltrate. You’ll aid in the takeover, then I need you to find out what they’re doing in there.”

“I’m not a geneticist, Fury,” says Tony, leaning back in his chair a little, then wincing a bit and leaning forwards again. Clint notices for the first time that Tony’s keeping his weight pretty carefully on his thighs instead of sitting properly. He exchanges a glance with Natasha and they both hide smirks behind coffee mugs. Go Pepper. Bruce looks at Tony over the satellite image he’s studying of the location, which Fury has just handed him.

“I have no doubt you will be by the time we get there,” he says mildly.

“Well,” says Tony, batting his eyelashes at Bruce, “I don’t like to brag…”

“There are files uploaded to your datapads, outlining the steps we’ve taken in the investigation so far. As Mr. Stark said earlier, we did initially believe this was a case for our regular division. SHIELD has had operatives in 30 countries working to crack this kidnapping ring, and it wasn’t until very recently that we made the discovery that the victims were gifted. For this organization to be so sure they will be able to contain more than a dozen individuals with supernatural abilities, we believe they are much more organized and powerful than had been initially assumed. The decision was made to bring in the Avengers Initiative. Black Widow and Hawkeye, you’ll fly to San Francisco and work with Director Coulson and the west coast division directly. His team believes they’ve found a connection in their jurisdiction, a crucial one, because though we have traced these people’s activities to several locations we now believe will help us stop them and rescue the kidnap victims, assuming they are still alive, we still have no idea who is in charge. Coulson will fill you in on what he has when you arrive, and you will put yourselves at his disposal. Is everyone clear?” He looks around. Of course, nobody has an entirely clear picture of what’s going on, but one thing Fury mostly does is try to make sure they have all the information they NEED to get their jobs done, even if he doesn’t always share everything he KNOWS. Clint assumes this just means time is of the essence and that what they need to know is in the files he’s sent them to read en route.

He packs quickly and efficiently. It’s something he and Tasha are both very good at. As specialists, they have never known when their skills will be called on, and have always been ready to ship out at a moment’s notice. They both keep ready bags of gear in their closets, needing only to add a few essentials. Since they don’t know what they’ll be asked to do, neither bothers with packing much extra clothing. SHIELD has a budget for these things. Clint actually owns a ridiculous number of tuxedos and expensive shoes because he keeps having to have one fitted when he shows up expecting to climb a building and snipe somebody and then ends up having to go to an opera or charity benefit to identify a target first. Or well, he used to have to. Mostly now he just gets to wear his armor, and shoot monsters and villains with exploding arrows. Joining the team has simplified his role a lot really, and that’s pretty much fine with him. They’ve always let him keep the clothes. They’re made for him, after all. He’s always found it irritating. Now, as he shoves socks and underwear in his duffel, he finds himself wondering what Phil’s going to be having them do. Did he request them personally? He remembers the time he and Phil were sent to Romania on their own, on a routine mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist from a terrorist cell, only they’d had trouble finding the guy. They’d had to come up with a cover and stay in the region longer than they’d planned while they tracked him down. He’d only packed assassin gear, so Phil had taken him shopping. He’d thought it was stupid at the time. With a smile he recalls snarking at Phil about trying on shoes and making faces and gagging noises at the cashmere sweaters and tailored shirts Phil had patiently made him model, while Phil built him a persona. He’d pretended the ties were choking him, that the slacks itched and the shoes pinched his toes. He’s pretty sure that had been one of the times Phil had wanted to spank him. Which makes him imagine what it would have been like if he had. If he’d shoved Clint face down over the glass counter of the expensive men’s boutique in Bucharest and just whaled away at him right there in front of the shop workers, with his pants around his ankles, until he cried and begged for forgiveness. He remembers the little hotel room they’d had to share, and can’t believe he’d thought nothing of it at the time, because now he’s seeing Phil drag him back there after making him apologize to everybody at the boutique, shoving him, sniffling and teary-eyed, through the door of their ratty little room, forcing him facedown on the bed, Phil’s hands yanking his pants down again while he begged not to be spanked anymore, only to have Phil shove his cock into him, angry and rough, while he struggled and begged for mercy and sobbed some more, helpless to get away or make him stop. He remembers when they’d finally found both their target and their mark and he’d finally gotten to climb something and wait for his shot. How would it have felt, to have sat there in the top of that bell tower, his ass sore and aching inside and out as he sat on the cold stone, whimpering and complaining into his earpiece while Phil told him softly there was more where that came from if he didn’t shut his bitch mouth, and….Fuck. Now he’s going to be walking up to the helipad with a raging hard on, and Natasha’s going to make fun of him.

She doesn’t. Oh, she notices all right, and her lips twitch, but she waits until they’re airborne. There’s nobody but them, because they’re both competent pilots, and they’re keeping the Quinjet in Frisco until their return. Starting out the front windshield, she reaches over casually and grabs his erection through his pants. His head drops back against the headrest and he sucks in his breath.

“Jesus,” he groans.

“What were you thinking about while you were packing?” she asks, and he can hear the rough edge arousal gives her voice.  He tells her, building the story with as much detail as he can, though he does it haltingly, with a lot of gasping and panting and little moans and muttered exclamations and curses, because she deftly unbuttons his fly with one hand and slowly jerks him off while he talks, being as filthy as possible. He knows she’s not faking how much it turns her on, because when he finally recovers from the spine-tingling orgasm and cleans himself up with antiseptic wipes (probably the wet spots this leaves on his pants with dry before they get there. Probably.), he takes the controls after growling at her to transfer pilot over to his station, then he returns the favor. His deft fingers slide into her pants, under her panties, where he finds her soaked and hot for him, her clit swollen. She snarls in frustration when the tightness of her pants prevents him from doing more than pressing rhythmically, and squirms and shoves, his hand trapped between her thighs, getting them down enough for him to have better access. He keeps talking, because in the last months, they’ve discovered that she loves it when he talks dirty to her, especially when he tells her, in as much detail as possible, about the things Phil does to him. Of course, what he’s planning to do to _her_ works for her pretty well too.

When they land the Quinjet, Clint’s well aware that they look a little debauched and disheveled, but to his surprise, Phil isn’t waiting there to meet them. He does his best not to be disappointed. One of the Frisco agents is there, though, and starts talking as soon as they’re out of the ‘jet and close enough to hear him over the dying rotors.

“Director Coulson asked me to meet you,” he shouts. “He’s been dealing with a small emergency, but wants you to come straight to his office upon arrival. He needs to speak with you immediately. I can take your bags to your rooms if you like.”

Ordinarily, neither Clint or Natasha would let anyone take control of their luggage, especially not to take it out of their sight, but these are Phil’s people. It still makes Natasha twitchy though.  They don’t waste time speculating, but make their way swiftly down the single flight of stairs to the top floor, where Phil’s office is located. The door is closed and locked. Clint raises his hand to knock, and pauses for a second when he hears Phil’s voice faintly from inside. Normal conversation wouldn’t be audible from out here. The place is well constructed. Phil’s yelling at someone. Phil. Yelling. He looks at Tasha with raised eyebrows. She looks as startled as he feels. But Phil had said immediately, so he knocks. Coulson’s voice becomes inaudible, and there is a longish pause. The door’s locks click, and it opens. Clint cannot help it when his heart leaps and then  pounds like a triphammer in his chest when he sees his Master standing there. He wants to go to his knees and feel Phil’s fingers slide through his hair, tugging gently to get him to his feet, wants to kiss him. He does none of these things. They are here in a professional capacity, and mixing their personal lives with a mission would be a good way to make Phil reconsider the collar Clint wears tucked under the collar of his shirt, the medallion with Phil’s name on it warm in the hollow of his throat. He does nothing, but he looks, and drinks in the sight of him. The first thing he notices is that Phil looks pissed. Not just irritated, or frustrated, or annoyed. He is well and truly pissed. He nods sharply at them, then turns on his heel and stalks back to his desk. They follow, and sit in the two chairs in front of the desk that he indicates with a jerk of his head. His movements are stiff and somewhat jerky. He sits down behind his desk, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. When he opens his eyes again, he’s under control, but Clint knows him well enough to see the banked coals of rage behind the mild expression.

“Reporting as ordered, Sir,” says Natasha, taking point, which is okay because she usually does anyway.

“I appreciate you coming so quickly,” says Phil. He takes a moment to recode the locks on the office, reinstating DND status, which makes Clint shudder in spite of himself. Coulson notices, and it warms the archer to his toes that the corner of his mouth quirks up just a tiny bit and his fingertips stroke gently across the silky surface of his desk for just a second. For Phil, this is positively unprofessional. “We’ve been fortunate enough to discover the identity of the man we believe is behind the kidnapping ring. He’s a wealthy international businessman by the name of Dante Vespucci.”

“So why hasn’t he been brought in?” asks Clint curiously.

“Because we don’t have proof. I know Fury can be a little high-handed, but I still can’t support imprisoning a person just because we’re pretty sure he’s one of the bad guys. Aside from that, we believe that he may be holding one or more of the victims somewhere inside his own property, and imaging tells us there is a sector of that property we cannot pick up on infrared or any other type of scan at our disposal. We need to get inside, and we need to do it without rousing his suspicion because if we don’t find his hidey hole before we apprehend, those individuals may not be recoverable in time.”

Phil’s hand on his desk has slowly clenched into a fist as he speaks. Clint finds this bewildering. Coulson’s seen all sorts of horrible things people can do to one another, and Clint has never seen him like this. He wonders what kind of unspeakable shit this Vespucci has done to upset the calm and collected agent this badly.

“So how do we get in?” asks Natasha calmly.

Phil gets up and turns his back on them, looking out the window. Clint and Natasha look at each other in silent confusion. Phil’s shoulders are hunched, and his hands are fisted at his sides. He turns back to them, and his eyes fall on Clint, bleak and miserable. Clint can’t stand the expression. He kicks protocol’s ass out the door and goes to Phil.

“Sir,” he whispers, his fingers reaching hesitantly for Phil’s, “What’s wrong?” He’s expecting Phil to remind him that this is business, to tell him to sit back down, but Phil takes his hand and squeezes tightly.

“Vespucci has some very specific tastes. Our best chance is to provide him with something….no, some _one_ to play with, that he won’t be able to refuse.”

“Okay, who?” asks Hawkeye, pretty sure he already knows what Phil’s going to say. Coulson’s eyes close tightly, as though he’s in pain. When he opens them again, he looks at Clint, the blue of his eyes almost lost in a black pool of rage and despair.

“You,” he whispers.

“Okay,” says Clint, shrugging. “What do I have to do?”

Phil doesn’t answer, instead turns his head to look out the window again. His entire being is a study in conflict. Clint knows that Phil’s dedication to duty, his personal integrity as a SHIELD agent, his loyalty to Fury, are more important to him than his own life. He knows that Phil had picked up that experimental weapon and faced Loki with it without a single moment’s hesitation. He’d known Loki would kill him. Phil hadn’t flinched. He’s flinching now. This is why a  lot of people in their line of work don’t have committed relationships. It’s especially why most people in positions of authority in their line of work don’t date their subordinates. Which was why they were only doing this now, since Phil wasn’t his and Tasha’s handler anymore. Except right now, he is.

“Might I suggest we take this conversation outside the facility, Director?” suggests Tasha smoothly. “It’s my belief that the current surroundings are interfering with your ability to fully express your assessment of the parameters and intricacies of this mission. SHIELD regulatory code HTSPS12479 states that when a subject in an investigation or sanctioned operation creates a situation in which it is rendered inadvisable or impossible for said subject to be briefed or interrogated within the auspices of SHIELD’s regional offices, classified information may nevertheless be revealed or exchanged in the field or at a neutral location best suited to put the subject at ease.”

Clint’s eyebrows shoot up as Tasha speaks. He knows she’s brilliant. He hadn’t known she’d memorized the SHIELD operations manual. He’s pretty sure he has one. Somewhere. He thinks he’s using it to prop up a broken leg on a bookshelf in his bedroom that he’d broken when he kicked it a couple of years ago.

“That regulation refers to civilians or agents of other organizations with whom we need to deal,” says Phil, a little bemusedly.

“Irrelevant, Sir,” says Tasha. “It applies, and the rule doesn’t specify. To put it simply Sir, let’s go get a cup of coffee. Obviously, we need to talk.”

Clint doesn’t care where they go, he just wants Phil to stop looking like that.

 

There’s a café a few blocks from HQ that he and Phil ate at once on his last visit, and that’s where they go now, getting a booth in the back from which they can still see the front door and kitchen access. They may not be expecting trouble, but it’s habit. They order something just so the waitress doesn’t get annoyed. It’s not a regular meal time, so the place isn’t very full.

“All right, Director,” says Natasha, poking at a chicken sandwich she obviously doesn’t want. “What’s going on?”

Phil hasn’t let go of Hawkeye’s hand since they got out of the car. His fingers clench reflexively and Clint cant’t swallow the small sound in the back of his throat that is very close to an eager whine. It doesn’t matter HOW it happens, or why, but when Phil is forceful, it just flat does it for him. Phil’s eyes close for a second as though the sound pains him.

“Dante Vespucci is a longstanding member of the Power Exchange….”

Tasha looks at him with a quirked eyebrow. It’s her “do you know what he’s talking about?” look.

“Fetish club,” he murmurs quietly. She nods.

“When he’s in residence at his property here, he attends play parties there fairly regulalrly, especially the ones that lean more towards gay partnerings. Power Exchange is a pansexual club, and discrimination isn’t tolerated, but there are some times when the events lean more towards one preference or another. There’s a party there in ten days that suits his general preferences well enough that we believe he will attend.”

“Sounds perfect,” says Tasha. “I’m not seeing the problem. If the three of us go, we should be able to blend okay, without being freaked out by what goes on. We’re the perfect choice. Clint and I could go in as a couple, couldn’t we? See if one of us can catch his eye?”

Phil looks at her reprovingly. Clint can’t really blame him. Tasha knows damn well Phil wouldn’t be this upset if that was the option on the table.

“It’s not that simple,” he sighs.  “Vespucci never shows interest in part of a couple. From what I know of him, this isn’t just because he doesn’t like sharing. It’s because he prefers his partners to be unattached so they don’t have someone to run and complain to when he’s done with them. He’s never done anything that would get him banned from the club, and he’s very careful to follow all the rules, but there are….rumors….that once he gets a sub behind closed doors, it’s a different story. The man is a sexual sadist, and by that I mean the textbook kind, not a Dominant who enjoys inflicting consensual pain and being in control.”

“Okay, I can see why you’d have reservations about letting him get his hands on Clint,” says Tasha, looking uncomfortable.

“I can handle it,” says Clint. He’s not afraid. Hell, so the guy’s a bastard. He’s done worse things for reasons not half as good as this one.

“I would have had _reservations_ when I was his handler. I would have hated even thinking about this when I was his handler. This…I can’t do this. Clint, you’re _mine._ What Fury has ordered me to do…to send you in there alone, as bait, to let that bastard take you home with him, leaving you alone with him for an indeterminate amount of time? In hopes that you’ll be able to locate his hidey hole and get out on your own? It’s betrayal. I’d hate every second of watching another man play you, but to do this I would have to voluntarily hand you over to someone I know is going to _harm_ you. And I promised you that would never happen. Never.”

“Harm him how?” asks Natasha sharply.

“Intelligence we’ve gathered says he likes breaking skin, leaving marks that last for weeks or months. He’ll take breathplay to the point of unconsciousness. He doesn’t care if the restraints he uses cut off circulation or put too much strain on joints. He likes to cut. He’s….” Phil chokes a little. “He’s rumored to be rather….endowed….and he’s not a fan of prep work. He likes the s….screaming.”

Clint starts to feel a little sick in his stomach. He’s never seen Phil like this, so bleak and hopeless and miserable. He doesn’t want any of those things to happen to him, but he’s pretty sure none of it would kill him, and he’s willing to do whatever needs done to save the people this man has taken. It’s one of the funny things that happened after he woke up from the nightmare of being under Loki’s control, and helped stop him and his world domination plans. The way they’d all accepted him into the ranks without even a sidelong glance or raised eyebrow, had trusted him at their backs, had done what no amount of patriotic speeches from fury could have ever accomplished. Those had probably worked pretty well on Steve, and weren’t even necessary for Thor, who was here to help anyway, but nothing Fury could have said would have really worked on any of the rest of them. Loners, he and Tash and Stark and Bruce, for a long time. Used to it, not looking to change it. Phil’s death had changed things for all of them. Their acceptance of him had finalized the change for Clint.

“Back up a little, Sir,” says Natasha. She’s tense, because she doesn’t like the sound of anything Phil’s describing either, but she’s a pragmatist. No matter what it means to her personally, she understands the necessity of getting the job done. She also trusts Clint to be able to handle himself, just as he trusts her, which is probably one of the reasons their relationship works. He knows it isn’t that Phil doesn’t trust them to handle themselves, it’s that he doesn’t quite understand on a visceral level that they can. Clint stops sometimes and wonders how a normal guy like him could have come to be included in a team like the Avengers. Even Tasha had things done to her by the Red Room, drugs and genetic manipulation along with all the other shit. But when he stops and thinks about it, he knows in his gut that there’s more to what he can do than is humanly possible. Normal people can’t shoot at something behind their backs with a bow and arrow and HIT it without seeing it. No amount of training and practice can make a normal person know exactly where an arrow’s going to go when they release the string. Oh, they may say they know, but that’s under normal conditions, on a range, after hundreds of hours of repeating the same shot over and over again. Clint’s always known, no matter what the conditions. He can see the shot in his head, every time. Really SEE it, exactly what it’s going to look like, how the wind will affect it, how hard the arrow will vibrate when it sinks home. He’s not impervious to damage like Thor or the Hulk, not enhanced with super soldier serum or genetically altered, but he can jump farther than he should be able to, see better than he should be able to, and he heals a little bit faster than he should too. So yeah, he may not like the thought of this much, but he’s ready. “Why don’t you outline Fury’s plan for us?” Tasha continues.

Phil sighs heavily. He’s still holding Clint’s hand. The archer places his other hand on top of their entwined fingers and traces Phil’s knuckles, the blue veins on the back of his hand.  It’s unbearable for his Master to feel this way. He longs to make Coulson feel better.

“Fury wants you to get in to the club. Since we’re aware that this group, theoretically headed by Vespucci, has been taking individuals with special abilities, he wants Hawkeye to go in with a bad disguise.”

“Pretend he’s pretending he’s someone else?”

“Exactly. It should be more than Vespucci can resist. Even if he doesn’t target Agent Barton for his collection, or experiments, or whatever it is they’re doing with the vics, he’s probably not going to be able to resist taking the famous Hawkeye to his bed. It would be one hell of a feather in his cap as a Dominant. And…Clint’s his type. Attractive, well-built, blue eyes, not too tall. He’d eat you up in a hot minute.” Phil’s smiling sadly at him, his thumb stroking over the pulse in Clint’s wrist. Clint’s eyelids flutter and he sucks in his breath. This meeting shit, all the sitting and talking, when every instinct and desire in his body is aching to be at Phil’s feet, to be under him, with Phil inside him, deep and hard, marks painting his body with Phil’s ownership….the small scrapes, welts, the bite marks or bruises that his skin is currently entirely free of, it’s unbearable to be here doing THIS instead of in Phil’s bed doing THAT. He understands why, but his body doesn’t.

“Is there another option, Sir?” he asks softly.

“No,” grits Phil angrily. “Not one we believe has any chance of success.”

“So it’s the only way to be sure of gaining access to his house so we can find out if he’s the perp, and if any of the mp’s are being detained on the premesis?” he continues.

Phil nods shortly, and Nastasha sighs.

“Then we have to do it,” says Clint simply. “I don’t mind, Sir. I’m sure I’ve had worse, and I’ll do everything in my power to minimize the actual damage he’s able to inflict. I don’t want him marking up your property any more than you do.”

“I MIND,” roars Phil. The waitress rushes over to see if something’s wrong. They send her away. Phil’s hand where it grips his own is shaking.

It’s horrible for Phil, but Natasha and Clint finally make him see that raging against this isn’t going to make it go away, and that there are too many innocent lives at stake for them to have the luxury of refusal. Clint coaxes and Natasha is terrifyingly practical as always. It’s a foregone conclusion anyway, because Fury has made it an order, but they get Phil to agree anyway, because neither of them believes the op can succeed if Phil isn’t behind them. He agrees, but he doesn’t stop hating it. They go back to HQ, go their separate ways because Phil still has work to do. Clint shows Natasha around, introduces her to a couple of the agents here he thinks won’t irritate her too badly. They eat in the cafeteria on the premesis because neither of them feels like leaving, in case Phil needs either of them. Clint feels like shit. He hates that Phil’s upset, and hates even more being the cause of it. He isn’t hungry, but Natasha makes him eat anyway. She’s silent for a while as they sit at one of the tables. The cafeteria is pretty standard, but the food’s decent.

“You need to go to him, Clint,” she says as they’re finishing up and dumping their trays.

“I don’t see how I can,” he says miserably, hunching his shoulders. “We’re here together AND as agents. I don’t think he’ll let me.”

“Don’t make me argue with you, Barton,” she says irritably. “I’m telling you I want you to go. I hate seeing him unhappy too. He needs you right now, and I don’t. He may try to play the ‘we’re working’ card, but don’t let him. We have ten days. You probably have a really small window of opportunity to make him feel better the way he needs it before it’ll be too late for the marks to heal,” She grins a little wickedly at him, and bumps him with her hip as they walk out of the caf together.

“You’re an evil woman,” he says resentfully at the hard stab of lust in his belly when she says that last thing.

“Uh huh. Make me sorry tomorrow. Good night, Clint.”

She kisses him once, hard, and then she’s gone, off to who knows where. Probably to terrorize someone who doesn’t deserve it. Natasha can be a little terrifying to junior agents without even really trying. He knows Phil’s apartment door combination, and Phil had programmed the card reader to recognize his ID on his last visit, so he lets himself in, knowing Phil is probably still in his office. He doesn’t know how long he’ll have to wait. Phil’s likely to stay in his office as long as he can, knowing Clint is here and feeling that he can’t allow himself to touch him. It sounds like Phil. He keeps busy as best he can, studying the files Fury’s uploaded for them, then searching websites for the few really good bits of information there is out there on the BDSM lifestyle. Clint’s always just been a dabbler, because his job had never allowed him to participate in a public venue, aside from a few anonymous visits to public dungeons in different countries. He hadn’t ever done anything, just kind of watched. It hasn’t ever been anything he really wanted to share with a room full of people. He’s played other people in public, the couple of times a girl he found attractive approached him and made it appealing enough. Got a blow job in a back  room of the place in Amsterdam once, and that had been kind of hot. The girl hadn’t spoken English, and his Dutch is rudimentary at best, but she’d really been into it when he’d spanked her, and he’d gotten caught up. So he guesses he can kind of see the appeal. If Phil wanted to beat the shit out of him in front of other people, he wouldn’t hesitate, because it’s Phil, but the turn-on would be doing it for his Master, not getting off on people watching. He also knows that he and Phil don’t have a D/s relationship based on a lot of rules and protocols, so he figures he’s going to need to do some studying if he’s going to be able to play this part convincingly.

It’s after nine when Phil comes home. Clint shuts off his datapad when he hears the first click. He’s on his knees when Phil opens the door.

“Agent Barton, what do you think you’re doing?” demands Phil angrily. Clint gets it. He does. Now that Phil’s committed to the plan, distance is his only defense. “Get up off the floor and go back to your room. Now is not the time for this.”

Clint looks up at him, his eyes pleading.

“Master, please,” he whispers. Phil rocks back a little, closing his eyes.

“Stop,” he says bleakly. It goes against every fiber of Clint’s being to argue. He wants to obey Phil, has to concentrate on staying where he is, because now that he sees Phil’s face, he knows Tasha is right. Phil needs this, badly. His face looks ravaged. Clint understands that Phil knows better than he does what he’s going to be walking into, and that it’s about a hundred times harder to send someone you’ve sworn to protect into EXACTLY the kind of situation you’re there to protect him from. He thinks that if he does this awful thing he’s going to do _without_ making Phil understand that he doesn’t hold Phil responsible, it is going to be even worse than either of them suspect. So he stays stubbornly on his knees. And he gazes up at Phil with his heart in his eyes, and he begs.

“Please,” he breathes, putting every ounce of feeling he can wring from his aching heart (and that’s actually a lot of fucking feeling, because this SUCKS) into his voice. “Please Sir. Master. I need you. I don’t care how we have to act tomorrow, or the next day. It’s ten days, Master. That’s enough time. Mark me, take me, make me yours. Please. I can’t stand it, Sir. If you don’t touch me, I can’t breathe. I can’t stand you to be mad at me, Sir. I’ll do anything. Forgive me. But oh God, please touch me.”

Phil’s face goes pale, and he jerks as though he’s been struck. Then he’s on his knees in front of Clint, and his fingers are tangled in Clint’s hair, and his kiss is brutal. Clint tastes blood in his mouth and moans softly into Phil’s mouth. Phil snarls and drags Clint’s head back cruelly, to bite at his throat. His teeth are sharp, and Clint whines through his nose, gasping, almost instantly hard and aching for Phil to touch more of him.

“This is not your fault,” hisses Phil furiously, biting harder and making Clint cry out. “I am not angry at you. There is NOTHING to forgive.  Do you hear me, boy?” His hands in Clint’s hair shake his head a little, and his eyes water. He doesn’t care.

“Yes Master,” he whispers.  “PLEASE!”

“Christ,” mutters Phil, climbing to his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Clint’s blood is bright crimson on his skin. He looks at the shining smear for a moment, then turns his eyes back to where Clint kneels, waiting for him, for a word, an order, something. Coulson’s gaze is as black as nightmares. He hardly looks sane. Clint shivers. Fuck, if Phil keeps looking at him like that, he’s going to come in his pants.

“Bedroom,” snarls Phil. “Strip. Now.”

Clint’s grateful for every moment he spent in the Circus learning to balance, to climb and tie his body in knots, because otherwise he’d be falling all over himself as he scrambles to obey. His hands are shaking, and he hears something rip in his pants when he yanks at them to get them off. He probably breaks some kind of record for going from fully clothed to completely naked, and stands there, trembling, feeling vulnerable and horribly, horribly aroused as Phil stalks into the room. Phil’s practically vibrating with rage and need. He stops in front of the younger man, breathing heavily and clenching his fists.

“I am not angry at you, do you understand that? Really understand it?” he grits out painfully.

“Yes Master,” says Clint. He’d been afraid Phil was mad at him for helping Tasha force agreement from him, but he sees that’s not the case, now. Phil’s angry at the situation, angry at Fury, angry at Vespucci, but not at Clint. But oh, he’s still very, very angry. It’s beating against Clint’s skin like storm waves.

“I want to hurt you,” says Phil hoarsely.

“Do it,” gasps Clint. “Oh God, I want you to. Please.”

“I won’t be able to stop, baby,” says Phil, struggling to get the words out. “I’d cut my arm off before I harmed you, but the thought of letting that monster lay his hands on you makes me want to mark my claim into every inch of skin you’ve got so badly I can taste it. I’m not even in my right mind, I am so FUCKING conflicted about this horrible thing, and the only thing I want to do is bend you to my will, show you that you belong to me so brutally, so viscerally, that there will be no mistaking it. I want to take you so hard that you scream from it. I want to see that beautiful golden skin raw and bruised. I want you shaking and sobbing. I want you to beg me for mercy. I want you mindless with it, desperate, I want you promising me anything if I’ll just let you come. I want….God. Clint. Stop me right now, or I will not be able to hold back. I am holding on to sanity by the skin of my teeth, looking at you standing there in nothing but my collar. Do you understand? MY COLLAR. Say no, this is the only chance I’m giving you. If you’re smart, you’ll take it.”

Clint’s mouth has gone dry. He feels like every drop of blood in his body has just gone pouring into his aching cock, listening to what Phil’s saying. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass if it’s sane.

“Oh God, I mean it, do it,” he pants, because he seems to be having trouble catching his breath. There isn’t time to say anything else, because Phil’s hand is in his hair, clenching hard enough to make his eyes water some more, forcing him to his knees (not that he’s fighting that at all, because _fuck_ angry, desperate Phil is hot). Phil’s other hand unfastens his belt, opens his pants and pulls himself out. He’s fully erect, harder than Clint’s every seen him really, and that’s saying something. He tries to lean towards Phil, wants to lap up the bead of moisture on the head of his cock, but Phil jerks his head back. “Open your mouth,” he mutters, and Clint does, immediately.

There really isn’t any other way to put it. Phil fucks his mouth, roughly, and deeper than Clint’s used to. He still doesn’t have a lot of practice at this, and it’s a little hard not to choke. Phil doesn’t react to his pleading whine, he just forces himself into the back of Clint’s throat. Eyes watering, he tries to breathe through his nose, and mostly succeeds, but he feels trapped, breathless. He struggles a little. He can’t help it. It’s his body’s natural fight or flight response to having his air supply threatened.

“Be still, little boy,” growls Phil, and Clint feels like he’s going to tear his hair out by the roots, but Phil’s voice drives a wedge into his panic and lessens it. “Relax. Take what I’m giving you. I’m going to come down your throat so I can take my time with the rest, because I won’t be able to hold back otherwise, and I mean for it to take a very. Long. Time.”

Clint’s eyes roll back into his skull and he moans. Phil sucks in his breath harshly at the vibration of Clint’s voice around his dick, so Clint does it again, and it’s easier now. He holds himself still and relaxes, not trying to control what’s happening to him or struggle against it, and it’s okay now. Phil always pulls back in time for him to take a deep, shuddering breath before he gets to a critical point, and now that he isn’t fighting it anymore, he’s not choking either. He whimpers and hums his pleasure and moans softly, and it makes Phil throw his head back and hiss through his teeth, the sharp jabs of his hips losing rhythm. He comes, a guttural cry wrenched from his chest as he empties himself down Clint’s throat, and Clint swallows as fast as he can, the muscles of his throat working around Phil’s pulsing cock. His jaw’s a little sore, and he has to take great heaving lungsful of air for a second, but it’s okay. No, it’s awesome. It’s a good thing it only takes him a few seconds to catch his breath, because that’s all Phil gives him.

He suddenly finds himself hurled facedown on the bed, where he bounces gracelessly twice before the warm weight of Phil’s body presses him into the mattress. Phil grabs both his wrists and shoves them roughly over the head, smacking the palms of Clint’s hands against the crosspiece of the headboard. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to hold. Hold the fuck on, and don’t let go. He won’t, he’s not going to, no matter what Phil…. _oh Christ, oh fuck._

Phil buries his face in the crook of Clint’s neck, opening his mouth over the big muscle in his shoulder where it joins. Slowly, exquisitely, he sinks his teeth in, increasing the pressure until Clint’s writhing under him and making helpless, breathy pain sounds. Phil’s teeth dig into the meat of him, and he worries at it like a dog with a bone. Sucking Phil’s cock that way, Clint’s already dropped more than halfway into subspace, and this nearly finishes the job. He’s loved being bitten since he was a scrawny sixteen year old kid, tied to Gretchen’s bed while she rode him, grim and determined, her eyes wide with fear, until the shine of terror gradually left them. When she’d leaned down, and he’d strained his head towards her, expecting a kiss, and she’d sunk her tiny, perfect white teeth into his bottom lip, splitting it open, and lapped at the blood, then bitten his neck, his chest, taken his hand and crammed his forearm against her mouth, grinding her teeth into wiry muscle while she screamed and came….well shit. That had been it for him. He still hasn’t told anyone, but not long after the big fight, after New York was saved, he’d gotten a card in his mail delivery. That wasn’t too weird, because they’d all started to get a lot of fan mail pretty quickly, but this one had stunned him. Inside the lavender envelope, there had been a plain, cream colored notecard. Inside it, he had found a note written in a great, looping scrawl.

                “Years ago, a boy with perfect aim saved me. He rescued me from darkness with his kindness and understanding, and he showed me that my life could once again be about joy and pleasure, instead of pain and fear. He was my hero. Today I watched a man with perfect aim help save a city. He is still my hero.

-          Gretchen”

There was a picture in it. She hasn’t changed a great deal. She is still ethereally slim, with long black hair tumbling in curls down to her waist, her skin so fair it almost has a blue tint to it. She’s older, but the haunted look he remembers is gone from her eyes. In the picture, she stands beside a tall man who is looking down at her like she is his whole world. Standing on the man’s shoulders, looking for all the world like she could stand there all day long, is a tiny girl with long, curling black hair, who cannot possibly be more than four years old. She isn’t even holding on. It had made him remember her mother, dancing across the tightrope like it was a solid floor, her fairylike grace as she threw herself headlong into space at the height of the trapeze’s arc, somersaulting over and over until it looked as though it would be too late for her to come out of it in time and catch the other bar tossed to her by another performer. She never fell. Her daughter is just like her. It’s one of the best things he’s ever seen.

But his thoughts of Gretchen are fleeting as Phil lets go and tips his head to the side to bite Clint’s neck, pressing his teeth in deeply until Clint makes a high-pitched keening noise. Phil uses his teeth to mark Clint with deep, bruising bites all over his shoulders and down his back, _sucking_ Clint’s flesh up into his mouth so he can grind his teeth into him. Clint squirms against the mattress, his hips rolling helplessly every time Phil’s teeth leave a fresh mark. He knows he’s going to be bruised, and hopes he doesn’t have to pull his bow any time soon, because he knows that the bruising’s going to tighten him up like a too-tight spring tomorrow. Just now, he can’t bring himself to care. Phil has bitten him before, but never like this. He’s not sure whether the damp places her feels are spit or whether Coulson has actually broken his skin. He doesn’t care. He hopes it’s the latter. He’s so hard it almost makes him want to cry, and he ruts himself shamelessly against the bed, whimpering. Coulson pulls himself up, his body pressing full-length into Barton’s, and growls low in his ear.

“If you come on my bedspread, boy, I’ll punish your disobedient little ass every day for a week.”

“Oh _fuuuuuckkk_ Sir,” he groans. “Not….not really helping me…..not to…”

Phil chuckles, and it is one of the darkest, filthiest sounds he’s ever heard come out of the older agent’s throat. He makes himself lie still, panting, because if he doesn’t, he’s going to explode all over the aforementioned bedspread, and he really doesn’t want to disobey Phil, not if he can help it.

He feels Coulson’s weight leave the bed, and can’t help the tiny whine of loss, but he’s not gone long. Clint hears the closet door open and the sound of a zipper. He squirms just a tiny bit, because he knows it’s the toy bag, and Phil’s collection makes his and Natasha’s look like tinker toys. Everything in it is exquisitely crafted of the finest materials. He feels the bed sag as Phil sits down beside him, then his head is dragged back again. He opens his half-crossed eyes and sees that Phil’s added to the collection since his last visit. The whip is short, less than eighteen inches of smooth, braided leather. It’s what’s attached that has his mouth going dry and his belly clenching. Unlike the roo hide singletails that leave hot stinging little bites on his skin with their slender nylon braided crackers, this is a quirt. Two slender tongues of leather, each about a foot long, are attached to the tip where the braided section ends. This is the business part of the tool, and he suffers under no illusions. It’s going to hurt like fucking hell. Phil pulls harder, until his body is curved backwards like a bow, whining through his nose at the stretch, and then moaning as Phil kisses him, brutally.

“Clint,” he says hoarsely. “Think you’re going to be able to forgive me? I’m going to hurt you. A lot.”

“Nuh….nothing to forgive, Master,” he gasps out. “An…anything you need.”

“Christ, I don’t deserve you,” mutters Phil, pressing his face to Clint’s hair. The darkness is still there though, and in short order the archer finds out how hard the new whip bites. The tongues lick across the muscled expanse of his back and leave behind a line of pure liquid fire. After the third stroke there are tears in his eyes. The sensation is monstrous, almost suffocating in its intensity. He feels a little like Phil’s peeling back his skin and exposing something naked and fragile and completely defenseless against Phil’s ruthless onslaught. He doesn’t fight it. The pain is intense and swamps him, but he doesn’t struggle, doesn’t try to resist where it’s taking him. He knows Phil needs this, needs to mark his territory, needs to bend Clint so utterly to his will that no matter what happens with Vespucci, Phil’s ownership of him will be so complete that nothing can shake the bond they share. Dimly, he’s able to be thankful that Tasha doesn’t feel this way too. He’s pretty sure his body can’t take another night like this.

He does his best to give Phil what he needs, crying out when the quirt bites into his shoulders, his back. He doesn’t hold back his tears when they come, and Phil’s snarl of pleasure when he cries thrills through his body like a balm. The quirt licks across his ass, and he writhes and yells desperately into the pillows. He knows Phil loves to hear him beg almost as much as he loves to do it, so he doesn’t even try to bear it stoically.

“Ohgodohgod,” he chokes on a sob. “Please Sir, it hurts….OH god, Master, please….please I can’t….oh no, oh please, no more, I promise I’ll…..I’ll be so good for you….OH GOD PHIL, PLEASE!”

Phil’s response is to drag his legs apart, kneeling between his feet to lick the quirt down the backs of his legs, the tips snaking around to bite into him where his skin is soft and tender. He wails in pain, gripping the headboard as hard as he can, until his hands hurt.

“Please,” he whispers, breathless with tears.

“You’re such a good boy for me, Clint,” purrs Phil, his voice as smooth and bitter as dark chocolate. “Such a good boy.”

“Master,” whimpers Clint.

“You’re taking this so well, baby,” Coulson murmurs, and his fingertips gently brush the welts on the archer’s inner thigh. Clint whimpers and gasps. ”You’re going to keep being a good boy for me, aren’t you?”

“Yes Master,” breathes Clint, shivering.

“Good. Now open your legs wider.”

He’s a howling mess when he hears Phil hurl the quirt across the room to thud against the wall and slide to the floor. Most of the back of his body is covered with thick, raw welts. He lays his sweaty face down on his arms and cries, shaking and drowning in the throbbing heat. Phil lays down beside him and traces his fingertips over the roadmap he has made of Clint’s body, while Clint whines and gasps and turns his face into Phil’s chest while hot tears roll down his face. He hears the faint pop of the lid on the tubs of lubricant snapping open, and his hips move of their own accord. The whipping had been brutal, and he’s almost completely wrecked, but his erection hasn’t flagged, not even during the worst of it. Vaguely, he understands it’s a good thing Phil is ordinarily a much saner man than this, because he loves this so fucking much, he knows he’d never stop Phil. Still, after everything Phil has had to do for his country, Clint thinks he deserves to go a little crazy when his country finally asks something it’s killing him to give. He’s going to wear every mark like a badge of fucking honor.

Phil’s finger, slick and wet, stroking up the crack of his ass, makes him curse fervently and desperately. Some of the welts curl down into the valley between his cheeks, and the stroking finger burns against abraded flesh. It slides into him all the way to Phil’s knuckles, and he squirms, panting. Phil has let go of his hair, but their heads are turned towards one another, foreheads pressed together, their heavy breathing mixing their hot breath, staring fixedly into each other’s eyes.

“I…goddamn it, Clint, I’m a monster right now, but I don’t want to stretch you out first. Can you take it for me, beautiful boy?”

Clint’s belly clenches, but his hips buck up against Phil’s finger, which is dragging slowly in and out of his hole, coating his with slick, but not opening him up very much.

“It’ll hurt,” he whimpers.

“Yes,” says Phil solemnly. “You’ve been so good, so brave for me. I’m so proud of you. I love the way the marks I’ve given you look on your skin. You’ve helped me so much, darling boy, and so I’m giving you an out I didn’t think I’d be sane enough to offer when we started. We can do this slow and easy and sweet. You’ve earned that.”

It’s seductive. Oh, it is. He’s aching all over his body. He looks into Phil’s eyes, and sees that the black has pulled back some, but it is still there.

“What do you want, Master,” he whispers, even though he knows the answer.

“Christ,” Phil presses his forehead harder against Clint’s, closing his eyes as though he’s in pain. “God help me, Clint. I want to bury my cock in you, force you open, while you scream for me. I want to feel you, so tight, too tight to let me in, and I want to shove inside you anyway. I want you struggling and begging and burning under me. God help me, I do want that.”

Clint kisses him softly on the lips.

“Master,” his voice breathes out, trickles over Phil’s lips. “Take me. Hurt me. Fuck me.”

Phil groans, an agonized sound that wrenches at Clint’s heart. But he doesn’t hesitate. He rolls on top of him, and Clint shudders when he feels Phil’s cock slide between his cheeks. There’s a hot blinding flash of pain when Phil shoves his hips forward. He screams, he can’t help it. It’s overwhelming. His body bucks against the intrusion, and Phil presses him harder into the mattress, snarling. It hurts, oh yes, but the bright pain goes straight to his cock too, and he isn’t sure if he’s struggling to get away or to get Phil deeper into him. Phil fucks him open, deep, rough strokes that wring yelps and mewls of pain from Clint. It’s nothing like the quirt though. The burn and the stretch he’s familiar with, and he knows Phil isn’t damaging him. He knows he can do this, can take Phil this way, rough and without much prep to speak of, because he has before. The pain is so liberally laced with lust and need that he’s not even sure if he’s sobbing in agony or desperation. Probably both. This isn’t punishment, it’s possession, so Phil angles for his sweet spot with every thrust, and he’s not sure now if he’s crying and begging for mercy or for permission.  Phil lifts his hips off the bed, back onto his knees, and drills into him harder. He‘s gasping out little choking sobs and pleading with Phil to stop. He knows he’ll die if Phil does. He’s desperately glad he found the courage to let Phil know how he loved to beg for mercy. And not get it. He realizes that a lot of Doms find it inexcusable for their subs to beg for mercy unless it’s what they really want. He’s horribly, achingly glad Phil not only lets him do it, but likes it. He ignores Clint’s pleas, a hum of satisfaction in his chest as Clint squirms and keens and begs. There’s a sudden sense of loss as Phil pulls out of him. He whines, but Phil turns him over onto his back. Muttering, he pulls Clint up and forwards, lifting his hips so he can shove back into his aching, sore hole. Clint’s tears roll down his temples now, wetting his hair.

“God,” says Phil feelingly. “You are so gorgeous right now, so fucked out and suffering for me. Christ, Clint. I love you.”

Clint, who has known how he feels about Phil for several weeks now, moans and writhes.

“I….” he gasps. “I love you too. Master! God, please!”

“I can’t even make you beg for it,” says Phil, his breath coming harder. He takes Clint’s hand and grasps the archer’s cock, wrapping Clint’s hand around his fist.

“Show me how you come for me when I’m not with you,” he whispers. “Show me, Clint, how you touch yourself when I tell you to. I’m going to come when you do, you don’t have to ask, just let go for me. You’re my heart, Clint. Show me. God, so perfect, so beautiful.”

Clint’s eyes roll back into his skull so far he sees stars. Hesitantly at first, he guides Phil’s hand slowly up and down his dick, which is now so hard he’s not even sure how his brain continues to function.

“No,” whispers Phil, with a short, sharp jab of his hips that makes Clint cry out and jerk helplessly. “Like you’re fucking your fist. Like last night when I told you what I’d do to you. I’m doing it now, Clint, fucking you raw, you’re going to feel it for a week. Your hole is so tight, aching and sore. It feels so good. _Fuck. Ohh_ little boy, it makes me a horrible beast, but I do so love hurting you. I love the sounds you make. I love the way you stay so hard for me, even when you’re crying, wanting me. It’s so _fucking_ hot. You’re perfect. You’re mine. Come on, baby, come for me. I’m not letting go until you do. Give it to me.”

Jesus. When Phil does this, it just _wrecks_ him, and he can only obey, fisting his hand on his cock, pumping hard with it clenched tight in his hand, Phil’s fingers curled around him, his master’s breath coming faster and harder as he watches Clint jerk himself off and whispers to him. His hips snap forwards, stabbing into him, harder than before, and it’s what Clint needs. The howl that tears from his throat when he comes is agonized. It’s like dying, like being born.

“God,” whispers Phil, and there is something akin to awe in his voice, though it is also ragged with need. “So gorgeous. Going to come now, boy, hang on.”

Clint does.

Afterwards, Clint floats in a surreal sort of haze for quite some time. He’s as close as he’s come to feeling like he felt after the day that Natasha had pulled him, screaming, out of the abyss he’d locked himself in. It’s different though, because there has been no emotional purging of horror from inside him. He is drained, yes, but it’s much more physical, and his emotional state is one of satisfaction. There’s pride too, because Phil whispers to him how brave and good and wonderful he is, and he hears in Coulson’s voice that this is true, not just something Phil is supposed to say. Phil is _better_ , and it’s because of Clint. It’s strange to be in actual physical _need_ of aftercare. Until now, what that word has entailed has been a bit of cleanup and being held and petted for a while until mind and body reconnect following the endorphin high. Those things happen now, certainly, but  this time Phil gently rubs his hands until they stop cramping from the death grip Clint’s had on the headboard for so long, tutting a little to himself and assuring Clint he’s going to use the restraints from now on, because he hadn’t meant to risk Clint’s archery. Clint’s too blissed out to care, but he's grateful for the gentle massage anyway, because dimly he realizes there’s no way in hell he could nock and pull right now. The antiseptic on the dozens of tiny places where his skin is abraded or even broken makes him hiss and whine, which makes Phil chuckle. Hawkeye doesn’t mind, really. The little stings remind him that he’ll carry Phil’s marks for days. Phil will look at him and see them, and it will help him, a little, with what’s coming. He’s back to himself by the time Phil’s finished tending to him and fussing over him, and he’s exhausted and happy and where he belongs, and falls asleep with his head on his Master’s chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll have noticed that I've heavily implied in one of Clint's musings to himself that he's more than human.. I've taken artistic license here. The Hawkeye of the Marvel comics universe is a normal human being who happens to be an incredible marksman and acrobat. My stories are based upon the MOVIEVERSE canon and my own head canon ideas that I extrapolate from those movies. In Thor, Hawkeye's brief appearance doesn't portray him as anything more than a very agile sniper. However, in The Avengers, the character does a lot of things that really question the credibility of him as a completely normal human being. Since I like my characters to make sense to ME, I've chosen to heavily imply that there is indeed more to Clint's abilities than just circus training and natural aptitude.


	5. Part Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ok well, the fourth part is now turning out to be three chapters instead of one! It just keeps growing. It's not my fault, as I am apparently not in control of what keeps pouring out of my brain. I hope I'm doing it justice.
> 
> Anyway, this chapter contains fluff and smut (ok no, porn). It also contains one very intense caning scene that could be squicky for lightweights, and an age play scene that is VERY consensual but in which "teenaged" Clint pretends he wants Phil to stop. Just wanted to warn you. Not my intention to jump up and down on any triggers.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

“It’s a good thing we have some time before the event at Power  Exchange,” says Phil, whose demeanor has changed from hopeless anger and despair to grim determination. It’s still not the way Clint wants him to feel, but it’s much better, so he’ll take it. “Because we have a lot of training to cover between now and then.”

They’re in his rooms today, which seems a strange place for Phil to hold a briefing, but this time it actually is a real briefing instead of an emotional train wreck.

“Training?” asks Natasha quizzically. Phil spares her a small, wry smile.

“I’m afraid there’s a lot more to this than putting on some fetish clothing and parading Clint in front of Vespucci,” he says gently.

“Explain,”

“Fury’s instructions were to send you and Hawkeye in with me outside in my usual role. That’s not going to work. Having you both in there unattached is just asking for trouble. Natasha would be hard-pressed to keep an eye on Clint, because she’d be having to contend with all the circling sharks looking to get a piece of her. Women as attractive as yourself rarely attend parties like this alone. You’d be hugely conspicuous. Vespucci would still probably go for Clint, but you might not even notice it from inside your circle of admirers,” he points out to her. Clint laughs. Natasha looks annoyed.

“I thought the party we’re going to was for gay couples,” she says, a little bit irritably.

“Not exactly. This particular event, and Power Exchange has quite a number of them, is an open play party. However, it has just happened that over time, this particular Saturday of the month has become more heavily attended by the gay and lesbian leather community than by straights. But since Power Exchange is a pansexual organization, there is no discrimination allowed, and so it’s not at all uncommon for _some_ heterosexual people to attend. They are just somewhat in the minority.”

“Ok, so what are we going to do then?”

“Hawkeye will go in, as badly disguised as we can make him while still looking like he’s trying to be somebody else. We need the mark to really believe he’s trying to pass as someone else. It’s possible, probable even, that other guests will recognize him too, but it’s a risk we’ll have to take. Fortunately, members of the Power Exchange are discreet. It’s _probably_ not going to turn up in the gossip rags that Hawkeye’s a raging freak.”

“I don’t care if it does, Sir,” says Clint, grinning impudently at him. “It’s true.”

“It really is,” agrees Natasha, reaching over with a smirk to press her finger into the bruise on the side of his neck. He gasps, and whines a little, glaring at her, doing his best to ignore the hard clench of pleasure in his belly.  He sticks his tongue out at her.

“Children,” says Phil patiently. “Do I need to separate you two?”

“No Sir,” says Clint, who isn’t helped at ALL by Phil saying things like that, and wonders if he voted to take a quick recess for carnal reasons Phil would go for it. Since he knows perfectly well the answer to that is NO, he squirms a little in his chair and subsides.  Then he thinks of something.

“Why aren’t people going to recognize Tasha?”

She rolls her eyes at him.

“I’m about a hundred times better at undercover work than you are, Barton. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be wearing a _real_ disguise.”

“Correct,” says Phil, but he’s looking sternly at Natasha, which Clint secretly finds absurdly sexy. “But don’t kid yourself, Agent Romanov. Agent Barton has the advantage over you here. He’s quite possibly one of the most natural submissives I’ve ever seen, he knows more about this lifestyle than you do, has fewer hangups than any other person I have ever met, _and_ it comes more naturally to him to follow my orders without overthinking than you. Your tendency is to focus on the end result as handed down to you by your handler or superior and then go about reaching it however you see fit. That’s a roadblock in this case. You’re going to have to set that aside. Calling undue attention to yourselves could botch the mission or even endager Clint’s safety. I won’t have that.”

“I understand Sir,” says Natasha, in an almost startling show of meekness. Maybe she’s practicing. He doesn’t know. Watching Phil put her in her place like that is making him absurdly hot. She looks out from under her eyelashes at Coulson. “What will I need to do?” she asks. God, she’s adorable.

“Natasha, you and I will attend as a couple. You’ll be my collared sub, and that will ensure that no one bothers you.”

“Why,” she asks curiously. “Have you been there before?”

“Not for a very long time. It’s possible some there will remember me, but that will only serve to reinforce our cover. No, I’m merely certain that everyone there will respect the rules and protocols of both the lifestyle and the facility itself. Dominants who hit on another’s submissive would be asked to leave and not come back. It will be your first time, both in reality and in our cover story, so it won’t seem odd for us not to play. That way we’ll be free to observe, and it won’t seem the slightest bit odd for us to do so. Newbies always stare a lot.”

Natasha nods, satisfied. This makes sense.

“However, because it is possible I’ll be recognized,” says Phil (and Clint’s just _crazy_ to find out that Phil’s been there before, dying to ask him when and with whom and what he’d done there but he doesn’t ask, even though it half kills him not to), “It’s imperative that I make sure you’re proficient in at least all the basic protocols and ways you should behave,” he says to Natasha. Then he turns to Clint. “And _you_ are going to have plenty of work to do too.”

“Yes Sir,” says Clint. He’s already realized this himself. He’s never been an active member of the alternative community, and he knows perfectly well he doesn’t know all its rules. He knows that his relationship with Phil isn’t really conventional….well, if it’s not laughable to call people who like what they like _conventional._ Which ok, yeah it is, but he knows that there is a….ceremony? ritual?....to it for a lot (maybe even most) of the people who are in it for more than the illicit thrill, who want more than play, want it to be a true (ha) power exchange. For what he and Tasha do, there are no rules, only what they agree upon between the two of them. And that’s fine. Nastasha’s lived enough of her life following other people’s rules, and God knows he’d never been very good at following them, so that they make it up as they go along is exactly right. They really don’t even have to do a lot of negotiating. They’ve known each other so well, for so long, that they speak languages between them for which there are no words. It’s so fucking gorgeous that a single glance and both of them know who’s in charge tonight. Body language, heartbeat, the tempo of breath and slide of muscle, a quiver here or a tiny flinch there…they tell each other what they need without words. Harder. Faster. More. He doesn’t think the language their bodies speak to each other has ever said stop, or enough, or a little softer please. He huffs out a laugh at the thought, which makes Phil glare at him sternly, and that doesn’t really help very much.

There are rules, of a sort, between him and Phil. Mostly these haven’t really  been discussed out loud either. He doesn’t suppose that’s terribly strange. After all, they’ve known each other even longer than he and Tasha. It’s just that…until the first night with Phil, he hadn’t REALLY known how deeply the streak in him that wanted to kneel at another’s feet ran. Had never imagined it, or fantasized about it. He’d known he liked the thought of being _taken._ He’d known that if he was honest with himself, he came just a teeny tiny bit harder when Tasha topped him rather than the other way around, although the difference is pretty minimal. So yeah, this had been a little startling. Almost as starling as finding out that tidy, composed, mild-mannered Phil Coulson was one of the most deliciously sadistic fuckers he’d ever met in his life. He knows, because shit, he’s been aware since he was a horny teenager that he had….unconventional….tastes in the sack, so it’s not like he hasn’t spent hours surfing the internet and reading about it, reading stories about it, looking at pictures…so yeah, he knows that most of the time in a real M/s relationship, there are rules. Ways you’re supposed to act, ways to sit and to kneel, not being allowed to eat until given permission, or to speak. Some people don’t allow their subs or slaves to refer to themselves in the first person. The removal of sense of self, theoretically, making them better able to focus on their Master or Mistress. Clint just thinks it sounds awkward. “Oh fuck, oh God, Phil, I wanna suck your cock,” rings truer to him than, “This boy would please you orally with your permission, Master.” He’s pretty sure he couldn’t keep himself from snickering. He’s actually pretty sure Phil would think it was ridiculous too. Hey, it’s great if it works for some people. Phil and Clint aren’t some people. When he kneels, it’s because he wants to, or because Phil puts him there, not because he isn’t allowed to let his head be higher than Phil’s. He obeys because he wants to, because he loves the way it makes Phil smile. Sometimes the line between his special agent self and his little boy self and his submissive self blur, but somehow it doesn’t ever get confusing to either one of them. Which is pretty awesome, and he’s not really interested in changing anything about it. At all. Safewords, that’s a rule. Phil won’t tolerate him enduring something that upsets him or causes the wrong kind of discomfort. That may sound like a contradiction to some people, since Phil so obviously loves HURTING him, but it’s not. The only time he’s said “red” during a scene was when Phil put a blindfold on him. He’d tried, for Phil’s sake, because he loved pleasing Phil, but it had been too much. Not being able to see had made him start to panic. Not in the oh god this is going to hurt and I don’t know if I can take it way. In the hyperventilating, mindless strangling terror way. Quite the opposite of disappointing Phil, the older man had been pleased. This was confusing at first, but Clint gets it now. Phil doesn’t want a door mat, someone who will allow thing to happen to them that they don’t want. He wants a thinking, secure, sane lover who is confident enough in himself to say no when he needs to. Well ok, Clint says no all the time. No isn’t a safeword though. Safewords, communication, honesty, obedience to the best of his ability – those are Phil’s rules. Until today.

Phil gets up and goes to the bedroom. When he comes back, he is carrying a long, slender cane. It is so slender, in fact, that it’s almost more of a switch than a cane. Clint feels the spit dry up in his mouth.

“Both of you,” says Phil, snapping out the words like the crack of a whip. “Take off your clothes. Underwear can stay on. Do it now.”

Neither of them hesitates. Phil has, after all, given them orders before. Clint’s a little surprised at how unhesitatingly Tasha obeys too, but he’s beginning to be a little disturbed at how hot he finds it, her obeying his Master. He can tell it makes her uncomfortable though, because he movements are a little stiff, and that’s not usual for her.

Phil makes them both kneel in front of him. Clint knows he’s starting to get hard, on his knees in front of one of his lovers with the other one mostly naked right beside him, and he knows it’s probably inappropriate under the circumstances, but he can’t help it. Thankfully, Phil ignores this. For the next hour, he teaches them various positions. They learn how to watch him while also keeping their heads bowed. They learn what to do with their hands. They learn to keep their backs perfectly straight. When they don’t move fast enough or get the positioning right, the cane taps sharply against ass, thigh, calf, or shoulders. It doesn’t really hurt much, just a little bit of sting, but it’s driving Clint insane. To his surprise, Natasha doesn’t seem to mind either. He really can’t tell if it’s working for her, or if it’s just that she is focused on the mission now, and learning to fulfill her role perfectly is just what she does. When he’s satisfied that they can both perform the actions he’s taught them to perfection, he sits down in his big leather recliner and looks at them both. His expression is both amused and brooding at the same time. It’s sort of like he’s resigned himself to what they’re doing even though he still hates it, but he’s decided to let himself enjoy the process of getting there anyway.

“Natasha,” he says finally.

“Yes Sir,” she murmurs, keeping her head down.

“Good girl,” says Phil, and thought he doesn’t smile, there’s a certain amount of smugness in his voice. “Now I’m going to ask you a question. I need you to think about it before you answer, because I need it to be absolutely true. Do you understand?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Will the fact that Dante Vespucci is a bastard, and our target, enable you to maintain protocol if it happens that he plays Clint in public? Or does the fact that you find watching him intensely erotic present a difficulty for you? I know you’re capable of watching him without seeming to, but it’s imperative that you _not_ react, except with the natural curiosity of a newcomer.”

Natasha is quiet for a while, doing as Phil has instructed and thinking about her answer. She’s frowning a little.

“To tell you the truth Sir,” she finally answers, “I’m not sure. I do find it erotic to watch him getting worked over, as you’re well aware. I believe it will be different in this case. My more pressing concern in this case would be not being able to conceal how pissed off I am at the fucker who’s hurting him.”

“Vespucci isn’t likely to hurt him very badly in public. As I said, surveillance indicates that he’s careful to follow club rules.”

“That may help,” she says cautiously. “I’m sorry I can’t be more certain, Sir. It’s just that I don’t want to say yes, I can handle it, and be wrong.”

Phil sighs.

“Then that’s something else we’re going to have to practice. Clint, come pull the ottoman out and bend over it.”

Clint doesn’t hesitate. Phil’s never used the cane on him yet. It’s giving him a really shivery feeling. Of course, the fact that he’s covered in red marks and bruises from last night doesn’t help him not feel sort of nervous, but he still wants to know what it feels like. The ottoman is wide and well-padded. His torso fits across it perfectly, his knees on the floor and his head cradled on his arms. Phil walks over and pulls his boxer briefs down around his knees and he whimpers just a little. Then Phil’s speaking to Natasha again.

“Go sit on the sofa. You will keep every hint of expression off your face beyond one that I will allow to range between mild interest to fascination. If you show signs of arousal or concern for his well-being, I am going to hurt him worse.”

Clint groans and hopes this ottoman’s leather has been conditioned well, because he’s already so turned-on that he’s probably leaking precome all down the side of it. He turns his head to the side to watch Natasha sit down on the couch, staring at him. She looks worried. He smiles encouragingly at her.

“It’s all right, Tash,” he says easily. He has no illusions that this is going to be easy.

“Clint,” says Phil, prompting him with the tip of the cane-switch to look up. When he does, the expression on Phil’s face is solemn.

“Yes Master?”

“You will not make any attempt to conceal from Natasha your true reaction to this. It won’t help her for you to attempt to spare her guilt if it proves difficult for her.”

He slumps a little bit, because he knows he’d probably do exactly that. Phil’s right though. It wouldn’t help her. He hopes this doesn’t suck too much for her. He doesn’t like the thought of distressing her. At all.

He feels the cane tap gently against his ass and he relaxes. He’s a little worried, but not for himself. He knows Phil’s going to make these hurt, but he also knows he’s going to stay hard as a rock the whole time. He’s just worried for her, mainly because he’s going to be really, really disappointed if this spoils watching him for her. There’s a pause then the smooth feel of the rattan leaves his flesh. He hears a faint whistle in the air for just a split second before the cane cracks down across the middle of his ass. For just a second, his mind only processes the sound of the impact. The sensation sets in after the next second. It’s a little like what he imagines having a red-hot wire laid across his flesh would feel like. Come to think of it, it’s a little bit similar to the cigar burns he’d acquired in North Korea. It’s not quite the same, just sort of in the same family. Except, that’s only how he imagines it feels at first, because of the shock of it. It’s very, very different from the feel of leather impacting his skin. The pain is only on the surface, not slicing deep into him, and it’s intense, especially because he’s sore as bloody buggering hell (he’d heard a British special forces officer say that on Ultimate Weapon the other day and he likes the way it sounds. Bloody buggering hell), but it also just about sends his brain straight into orbit. He cries out when it sinks in, but it’s not entirely a pain sound. The second cut of the cane is placed precisely below the first. He squirms, his erection rubbing against the buttery-soft leather, and moans softly. When the third and fourth strokes have a similar effect, he realizes what Phil’s doing. For this part, he’s testing Natasha’s ability to conceal  how much she likes seeing him whimpering and groaning and writhing, aching with need and practically humping the ottoman like a schoolboy. Phil’s stinging his ass pretty bad, but it’s not _really_ hurting, not yet.

“Agent Romanov,” snaps Phil sharply. The moment after he says it, the cane slices down across an earlier stroke. Hard. Clint throws his head back and sucks air in hard through his nose.

“ _Fuck,”_ he whispers feelingly.

The erotic strokes resume, and in moments he is squirming and panting and making desperate, needy sounds. Holy fuck, he LOVES canes. The tiny delay between impact and sensation, the sharp sweet shock of pain, the fact that the instrument is so light that it does not jar him in any way and yet is still so intense, and that Phil is a fucking genius with the thing are all combining to drive him insane.

“ _Ohhhh,”_ he moans softly, because he’s eating this up like ice cream right now and it’s apparently his favorite fucking flavor.

“Control  it,” barks Phil, and another vicious slice wrings a strangled shout from his throat. He pants and whines and shudders. Tears spring up in his eyes. It’s not enough, quite, to send him over the edge into breaking down, but it’s close. The softer strokes resume again. It takes a little longer to get back into it this time, because the two vicious strokes are both throbbing along with his heart’s beating, but he gets there. Apparently somewhere amid this round, Natasha gets her reaction under control, because Phil changes the approach. “Go further over, boy,” he says roughly. “Palms of your hands flat on the floor. Open your legs.”

Swallowing nervously, he slides forward until his head and shoulders are off the ottoman, his hands flat on the floor. This means he can no longer kneel. Only the tips of his toes touch the floor on the other side. His backside and legs are a lot more exposed like this. Phil crouches beside him and pulls his head back by his hair to whisper in his ear. It is so soft Clint has to strain to hear him.

“I’m going to make it hurt a lot now, beautiful boy,” he breathes. Clint squirms some more. Phil’s threats are some of his favorite things in the world. He’s a little scared, but his body and his need _love_ this shit. “She has to be able to handle both reactions of yours. I am going to make this up to you after we’re done, but first I’m going to break you. Do you understand why?”

“Yes Master,” sighs Clint.

“You’re perfect,” murmurs Coulson. “You’re so good for me, so brave and obedient and beautiful. I’m so proud of you. I’m sorry for this, and ordinarily I’d never hurt you this much after a night like last night, but I feel it’s too important not to do it. It can’t wait until you’ve healed, because then we’d have the problem of not being able to mark you up anymore.”

“I know, Sir,” he whispers back. “It’s all right. She’d never forgive herself if she didn’t get this, couldn’t hide it when we get down to it. We all have to know she can do it, have to know for _sure_. Especially Tasha.”

“So wise, as well as brave.” Phil’s voice is still softer than a sigh, an Clint knows it’s because he doesn’t want Tasha to hear what he’s saying. He brushes a kiss that is almost softer than his breath against Hawkeye’s temple and then gets to his feet.

The caning turns brutal after that. Phil paints perfect parallel lines from just above the swell of his ass down almost to the backs of his knees. He’s so fucking sore from last night that it brings him to tears almost immediately. He’s shared his love of begging for mercy with Tasha, so he doesn’t indulge it. The part of him that craves anything Phil does to him still loves this, craves it, even though it’s enormous, and normally he’d be pleading frantically for Phil to stop (knowing he wouldn’t) right now. The pleading helps him through it when it’s too intense. Takes some of the hurt and transforms it to heat. He can’t do that this time, because since she knows he loves to beg, she’d know he loves this too, even though he’s got tears rolling down his face. That’s not what Phil needs her to see right now. So he cries, and he yelps and shakes and finally _screams_ when the thing wraps in to bite his inner thighs. Holy fuck, he HATES canes!

“Shit,” mutters Tasha. There’s concern in her voice.

“Rein it in, Agent,” snaps Phil. “You’re the only one who can end this for him.”

“You’re _hurting_ him,” she snarls. Lesser men have nearly wet their pants when the Black Widow gets that particular tone in her voice. Phil is made of much sterner stuff. He slashes the cane across the backs of Clint’s legs, wrenching an agonized howl from the shuddering archer.

“I said REIN IT IN,” roars Phil. “Or so help me, I will do this to him again tomorrow, every hour, on the hour, until you get your _fucking_ expression under control!”

Clint feels a little ill at this.

“Please, no,” he whispers in a small voice, thick with tears. This time It’s not the fun kind of pleading. He desperately doesn’t want to do this again tomorrow. He doesn’t want to do it anymore right NOW. Natasha can apparently hear the difference in his voice.

“No,” says Natasha, in a deadly calm voice. “I’ve got it. I can do this.”

“Show me,” hisses Phil angrily, and the cane cracks down again. Clint’s wordless plea is frantic. Oh please, Tash, he thinks desperately. You can do this. Save me. He feels a tiny, itching trickle roll off the highest elevated curve of his upraised ass and down his hip. He thinks it’s blood at first, but after three more nauseating strokes, the cane thumps to the floor and Phil has his arms around him. The fluid he’d felt was a tear. Phil is crying a little too. Clint turns his head and presses it to Phil’s neck, his body shuddering with sobs.

“Shh, baby,” whispers Phil. “I’m so sorry, love. It’s over. You were so brave, so good. Shh, I’ve got you.” He raises his head and his voice a little. “Natasha, come here,” he says firmly. She doesn’t protest, and Clint feels her hand slide a little hesitantly across his shaking shoulders. She leans down and presses her face against his hair.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles. She sounds miserable. He turns his head and she sits back a little, but her hand stays on his shoulder, trembling a little.

“It’s okay Tash,” he says softly, as he regains control of his voice. “We had to know. We had to. I’m all right.”

She leans down and kisses him, soft and surprisingly sweet. It’s not really a Tasha sort of kiss. For some reason an act so gentle from her coming on top of the brutality of the caning just does something to him, and he leans into the kiss, deepening it. He’s making eager little whimpers in the back of his throat when she responds.

“I think he deserves a reward, don’t you?” Phil says in a low voice. Tasha breaks the kiss and looks over his head at Phil.

“You’re fucking right he does,” she agrees. “What do you have in mind?”

“Are you okay there for a minute, little boy?” asks Phil.

“Umhmm,” says Clint, as a pleasant lassitude slowly washes over him, the endorphins released by the pain finally kicking in and sending him soaring. Phil chuckles and stands up, stroking his hand gently down Clint’s back

“Natasha, come with me for a minute, I want to talk to you about this. Clint, don’t fall asleep before you get your reward.”

“Mkay,” sighs the archer serenely. He’s not sleepy really, just feeling really, really floaty.

They’re not gone long. A couple of minutes later they are both at his sides again, helping him to his feet, pulling his boxer briefs the rest of the way off, and leading him into the bedroom. Here Phil lowers the bar he’d installed on Clint’s most recent visit, using its pulleys to put it just barely above Clint’s head when they put him on the bed on his knees. His hands are lifted, cuffs buckled on, and clipped to the bar. It’s not any kind of a stretch, and Clint finds bondage enormously erotic and at the same time peaceful. It takes away a little of his choice. Sure, he knows he can get out of it at any time if it starts to be a problem, but mostly he just loves knowing that when he’s bound in some way, he can’t do a damn thing about what Phil decides to do to him except take it. It’s awesome. He leans his head against his right arm and sighs contentedly. He doesn’t know what Phil intends, but he’s secure in his certainty that it’s not going to involve further beatings.

His certainty is confirmed when Tasha gets in front of him on the bed and sits facing him with her legs outspread around his knees. She takes his dick in her hand and strokes firmly, with just exactly the right amount of pressure. As he groans blissfully, she takes him into her mouth and sucks, which turns his groan into a frantic whine. He feels Phil kneel behind him. He’s taken off his shirt but not his pants, and when he presses himself against the Clint’s back, the archer leans back into him, sighing happily. He loves the way Phil’s skin feels against his own, so warm and strong. He hears the snap of the cap of the lube bottle and whimpers. He’s still horribly sore.

“Shh,” murmurs Phil. “Relax, darling boy. I’m not going to fuck you.” Then his finger slides slowly and carefully into Clint. Because he is so sore, this makes him whine a little, but it’s not a bad kind of pain. Phil’s very slow and careful, sliding with aching slowness in and out of Clint’s hole, stroking his fingertip across the younger man’s sweet spot every time. This, combined with the delicious friction of Tasha’s suction on his cock, has him seeing stars. His hips roll hungrily. This slides his cock further into her mouth, which she swallows with ease, and partway off Phil’s gently massaging finger.

“ _Fuuuuuckk,”_ he swears fervently. Tasha hums. Phil twists his finger a little bit.

“Like that, little boy?” Phil’s voice gruff in his ear, where he presses his mouth close.

“Oh God, yes,” he whimpers. “I’m…fuck, Tash. So… _nng…_ so good. I can’t….I can’t hold out long, Sir. Please…”

“Don’t hold out at all, baby,” urges Phil. “You’re so good. This is just for you. You come whenever you want. We’ve both got you. We’re just going to keep loving you like this until you’re ready for us to stop.”

“Don’t….stop,” he groans. “Ohhgod. I’m gonna….Tasha. _Shit. Fuck._ That’s….”

When Tasha laughs, his cock halfway down her throat, and Phil presses firmly against his prostate, he loses it, flying apart at the seams. He shouts helplessly, his body arched back against Phil, coming and coming, until he’s finally left wrung out and sated. They take him down, and put him between them on the bed, held between their bodies like something that is worth keeping safe and warm. He’s not sure he’s ever felt this awesome in his entire life.

The lessons continue for the rest of the week, although as Clint’s bruises begin to heal, Phil takes great care not to inflict any more of them. Clint’s body must not look like he’s had this much experience taking a whipping. He’s not very happy about it, but he knows it’s important, so he doesn’t complain.

Phil teaches them meticulously the rules of this game. Clint practices meek and slightly uncertain until Phil’s satisfied it’s flawless. They learn how to undress quickly AND with grace at the same time. They practice watching Phil’s face and actions for clues on how to silently anticipate what he wants before he says it. They  learn how to fetch and serve him drinks, sinking to their knees in front of him without jostling the brimming glass of water. They learn to respond correctly to questions. When Tasha forgets, and calls him Phil, which isn’t often, he taps her with the cane. Clint only calls him Phil when they’re in bed mostly anyway, and doesn’t forget. He makes them remember to say it to EVERYONE though, and that’s a little harder to remember. Clint doesn’t get the cane, he’s supposed to be healing, but he does get the palm of Phil’s hand, a sharp slap on his ass or the back of his leg, which smarts but won’t leave a mark. If he forgets to call the mailroom clerk and the occasional secretary or junior agent Sir or Ma’am on purpose, well, Phil doesn’t get angry at him about it, although Clint’s pretty sure the handler’s well aware what he’s doing.

Phil takes them into town to shop for fetish wear. This is nothing like boring clothing shopping in Bucharest. The leather pants aren’t anything strange, they feel about the same as his uniform to him, but he strokes his fingers down his thigh the whole time he’s wearing them while they shop (Phil says he needs to spend a few minutes in them to make sure they’re not going to chafe anywhere) because they are made from velvety smooth Italian lambskin and fit like they were made for him. They lace down the outside of his leg on both sides, exposing a long line of flesh from hip to ankle. It’s not a wide gap, probably less than an inch, so they’re not revealing or anything, they just look awesome. They debate getting him a leather thong too, but Clint collapses in a fit of snickering at the sight of himself in it, and is completely unable to stop himself, positively fizzing with hysteria at how silly he looks. Phil tries to be stern, but Natasha nudging  Clint with her shoulder and getting tickled by the whole thing too makes it completely pointless. They lean against one another for support in the dressing room, howling with laughter, until Phil starts to laugh too.  Clint’s career as an underwear model is definitely over before it starts. Phil decides his usual boxer briefs will do. They make his ass look great anyway.

The bondage harness doesn’t make him laugh at all. Sure, it makes him look a little bit like a star in a gay porno, but the way the straps hug his torso feels great, like being tied up without being confined, and he loves it. Plus it makes his arms and shoulder muscles look fantastic. They consider various pairs of goth boots with buckles and straps and lug soles, and they do look pretty cool with the rest of the outfit, but they take too long to get off and on, and he can’t run in them very well. They hope he’s not going to have to run, but he’d like to feel confident that he CAN if he needs to. They finally settle on a pair of Doc Maartens oxfords. They’re black, and the soles aren’t too bulky, and Docs are favored by the whole goth and fetish crowd anyway. Phil doesn’t even let him try on the leather collar that comes with the harness, giving it to Tasha instead.

“You won’t wear any collar but mine,” he growls. “Besides, you don’t wear collars to a BDSM club as jewelry. You only wear one as a stamp of ownership.”

“Yes Sir,” says Clint, who feels rather absurdly touched by this sentiment. It looks hot around Tasha’s neck anyway.

It isn’t really fair how much cooler women’s fetish clothes are than men’s. Tasha gets to wear a black patent leather corset. It has buckles up the front, covering the front busk, and laces tight up the back. Phil cinches it down on her until it molds her body into something out of a teenaged boy’s wet dream. Her breasts almost spill over the top. Her waist is tiny in it. She moves around in it a little and declares that she wouldn’t want to turn backflips in it, but that it’s comfortable. The one she’d worn the night Clint had gotten his collar is more cheaply made than this one, and she’d declared that the boning dug into her waist and banished it to the back of her closet. She gets a long, wine-red velvet skirt that brushes the tops of her feet. There are slits up both sides almost all the way to her hips. The leather collar and some wrist cuffs that match it are her only jewelry. Thigh-high black patent leather boots that match the corset complete the look, and Clint wonders if the shopkeeper would mind if they borrowed the dressing room for a few minutes. Phil slips up behind him while he ogles Tasha’s ass from behind. His fist in Clint’s hair wrings a gasp from his lungs.

“No,” he growls warningly. Clint sighs.

“Tyrant,” he pouts. Phil huffs out a laugh and kisses the back of his neck. Clint shivers.

Clint asks Phil what he’s going to be wearing and Phil answers him with great dignity that he already has appropriate club wear. This, of course, drives Clint crazy, and he pesters Phil about it all the way back to SHIELD. When they’ve parked in the underground garage, Phil leans towards him and hooks a finger under Clint’s collar. He tugs gently (it’s not made for dragging people around by) he leans in obediently.

“Do you think that just because I can’t spank you right now that I’m not keeping track of every bratty little thing you do?” hisses Phil softly, their mouths almost close enough to touch. Clint whimpers.

“No Sir,” he gasps.

“That’s good. Then you won’t be surprised at how long. How hard. How painfully I blister your insolent little ass when this is all over.”

“ _Fuck,_ ” pants Clint. Phil kisses him once, a rough peck on the lips, then gets out of the car and strolls nonchalantly to the elevators as though nothing untoward has occurred.

“You look like you’re about to come in your pants,” snickers Tasha from the back seat. The look he sends her crackles with heat.

“When’s out next training session?” he growls.

“Couple of hours, we have time for lunch.”

“No,” says Clint definitely. “We don’t.”

 

The last few days before the Power Exchange event are spent working out disguises, meeting with tech to have tiny transmitters fitted so that they somehow can’t be seen when Clint’s essentially naked. It’s not an easy decision. He’s getting a little sick of having his body poked and prodded while he stands buck ass naked on a chair. He can’t wear it in his ear as the techs suggest. Clint rolls his eyes while Phil explains that whispering in a sub’s ear during a scene is something practically every Top and Dominant does. They try it stuck to his skin behind his ear, but anyone running their fingers through his hair might have a chance of hearing it. One tech suggests implanting it in Clint’s necklace. It makes the bottom fall out of his world when Phil says,

“He won’t be wearing it that night.”

Intellectually he knows he can’t. It’s too striking, and he’s bound to get asked about it. He can’t even wear it as a bracelet because he’ll be wearing specially designed wrist cuffs. The cuffs are strong enough to bear his full body weight, but there’s a button in the place of one of the rivets right below the palm of his hand that is actually a quick-release. It still makes him feel sick in his stomach when Phil says out lout that he won’t be wearing his collar.

Phil gets irritated with the techs and sends them away to work harder. Clint, who by now is unhappy and impatient at the same time, is told to go get outside for a while and relax. He does so, and walks to a nearby park to sit in a tree for a while. It helps. On the way back, a tattoo and piercing studio gives him an idea. When he gets back to HQ, there are three stainless steel rings in his left ear, and a larger ones through each of his nipples. The cartilage piercings in his ear are probably going to get in the way of his SHIELD headset when he’s on missions, so he doesn’t really plan on keeping them, even though he sort of likes the way they look. The nipple rings though, if Phil likes them, he doesn’t want to take out. They’re hot. And he’s glad the piercer, a muscular bald guy with over a hundred piercings of his own and almost no skin that wasn’t covered with tattoos, thought his soft groan and bitten lower lip was because  it hurt. Well ok, it _was_ because it hurt. But it sure as shit wasn’t a pain sound.  He marches back into the tech lab, yanks his shirt off and turns his freshly pierced ear towards the group where Phil and the two techs working on the transmitter are huddled in deep discussion.

“Hey,” he says, and he knows perfectly well that he sounds snarky as hell, but they’re standing there speculating as to whether he can somehow wear the transmitter internally, and he doesn’t want to know what they mean by that. “Think maybe you guys could work with any of these?”

Phil turns to look at him, opens his mouth to say something, and just stops, staring at him. The techs are beside themselves with excitement, babbling about how easy this is going to be now. Clint doesn’t pay any attention to them. His eyes are glued to Phil’s face, whose expression for a really long minute or two is unreadable. He bites his lip uncertainly. Shit, what if Phil’s mad at him? After what seems an interminably long time, Phil shoos the techs off to put the transmitter into a bead that will replace one of those holding his nipple rings in, and steps closer to Hawkeye, leaning in to inspect the cartilage piercings. He flicks the nipple rings with his fingertips and Clint gasps a little because they’re really tender.

“I hope you like these,” murmurs Coulson in his ear. “Because you’re keeping them.”

 

He’s been letting his facial hair grow all week, and has it trimmed into a short moustache and goatee. It doesn’t look half bad on him, he’s just not sure if it’s worth listening to Tony poke at him about copying him in order to keep it. Ok no, he positive it’s NOT worth it. Tasha offers to paint his fingernails with black polish, but he laughs at her and plucks the bottle from her hands.

“Like I didn’t do this every other day or so the whole time I was in high school. Well, when I went to school. There was a pretty long phase when I was a kid where I went the whole dark, broody goth route. Besides…” he wiggles his fingers at her. “Manual dexterity’s kind of my thing.”

“Being impossible’s kind of your thing too,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“That too,” he agrees amiably, holding up his black fingernails and admiring them. He’s done a really good job. The polish isn’t just to help make him look like every other wannabe gay slaveboy on the market, it also contains a compound Tony and Bruce cooked up (he’s pretty sure by accident) that *should* react to sensory equipment even if something goes to hell and he ends up in Vespucci’s invisible room. Mostly he’s trying pretty hard not to think about that possibility.

He’ll wear thick black eyeliner to go with the leather, the black fingernails and the piercings, but no other makeup. He doesn’t think he could pull it off. He’d feel like an idiot. When he practices with the eyeliner though, Phil abruptly gets up and leaves the room. Bewildered, he asks him about it later.

“It makes you look absurdly young and wide-eyed and clueless. Just…don’t throw it away,” says Phil, looking vaguely embarrassed.

Ohhhhh.

Natasha’s flown to Malibu for the evening to pick up some new toys Tony’s arranged to have available for them. She knows the way to his house there, and JARVIS will let her in and show here to the lab. She’ll probably stay there and let the AI teach her how everything works, then fly back in the morning. While Phil’s still working, he goes down to what every SHIELD agent at every full function base he’s ever visited refer to as ‘the salon.’ It’s not exactly an accurate description, but it’s where anybody who has to have their basic appearance changed goes to have it done. He’s supposed to get a temporary rinse put in his hair that’s dramatically different from his own dark wheat gold. Nobody has told him what color it has to be though. The stylist tries to talk him out of his selection. He’s stubborn. She gives him what he asks for. Since he doesn’t really feel like going shopping again right now, he makes a pass through wardrobe on his way to Phil’s. It’s getting late enough that he has to hurry a little, but he’s finished in time.

When Phil Coulson opens the door to his apartment the apparition sitting slouched on his sofa makes him freeze in astonishment. He finds himself momentarily at a loss for words. A boy with a very defensive expression on his face is reading one of Phil’s Amazing Stories comic books. His feet, clad in scuffed, ratty black Chuck Taylors, are propped up on the arm of the sofa. ON HIS SOFA.  Black skinny jeans so tight it’s a wonder the young man has any circulation left in his groin accentuate the muscle in his legs. There’s a rip in one knee though, and the other knee doesn’t look like it’s far behind. The kid’s wearing a t-shirt with a picture of some kind of Japanese Anime character on it. Phil thinks it’s Inu Yasha, but he’s not positive. Dozens of bracelets adorn both wrists, from rubber bands to hand-woven friendship bracelets to leather thongs to thick black studded cuff bracelets. Black fingernail polish is chipping off the finger the person has in his mouth, nibbling absently at it. The tip of his tongue flicks over the tip of the finger, then he sucks gently on it. The comic book is propped up against his thighs, and his other hand toys absently with what is obviously a nipple ring poking up through the fabric of his thin tee. His silver-blue eyes are outlined in black kohl, which tilts up and out at the corners to give him an almost catlike expression. More piercings glint from his ear, and his hair, spiked messily with some kind of gel (at least Phil hopes he didn’t use glue) is a rather shocking deep plum color.

Clint bites his bottom lip, which he knows Phil thinks is adorable, but it’s also to keep himself from laughing at the poleaxed expression on Phil’s face. Coulson clears his throat. Since he’s not sick, Clint knows this is what he tends to do when he’s not at all sure what he’s going to say next. The young man jolts in surprise and guilt, sitting up and looking around for somewhere to shove the comic book (which he’d never actually do because Phil would skin him).

“Oh. Uh…um. Hi,” he says nervously.

“Would you care to explain any of this?” asks Phil drily. He is, however, a little breathless.

Clint looks at the toes of his shoes and shrugs one shoulder.

“I….I…..I saw you at the coffee shop today,” he stammers. Phil’s eyes have begun to take on a very interesting gleam.

“Did you?”

“Yeah….and….and….you were checkin out my ass too, I saw you.”

“I beg your pardon?” says Phil politely.

Clint crosses his arms defensively.

“Well you were. An…an I followed you home.”

“And you did this rather mad thing why, exactly?” asks Phil, going to sit down in his favorite chair. He crosses his ankle over his knee and folds his hand on top, looking only mildly interested.

Clint looks sullenly at his feet and pokes his toe at the carpet.

“Do you have a name?” prompts Phil gently.

“What do you want it to be?”

“I’d prefer to call you by your real name,” says Coulson with a smile. Clint doesn’t think that part’s in character, he thinks it’s a message.

“Clint,” he answers reluctantly.

“Where are your parents, Clint?” asks Phil. The gleam in his eye is pretty unmistakable now.

“They died,” he says, his eyes skittering away and refusing the meet Phil’s

“I’m very sorry to hear that. It doesn’t, however, explain what you’re doing in my living room with your feet on my sofa.”

“What? I….oh. Wow. Sorry, Mister. I guess I wasn’t thinkin,” says Clint, hoping he manages a creditable flush. Since Phil’s meticulous about his furniture, and he wonders if this is getting added to the list, it’s not terribly hard to do.

“Mm,” says Coulson. “Answer the question please.”

“I…you…you looked….nice. I don’t got nowhere to go,” he says, hunching his shoulders uncomfortably. “I thought, yanno, maybe you’d let me like, crash on your couch for a couple of days?”

“In your shoes?” murmurs Phil with a definite twitch of his lips.

“I’ll take em off, I’m real sorry Mister,” says Clint eagerly.

“You felt that the best way to get me to agree to let you stay here was by breaking and entering?”

“Well,” says Clint, cutting his eyes at Phil and grinning a little. “It was raining.”

“Of course. All right, assuming I decide to let you sleep here for a few days as opposed to calling the authorities…”

“Please Mister, please don’t do that,” says Clint quickly, desperation in his voice.

“Assuming that,” Phil continues, “You’d have to be willing to do your share of chores, and promise not to steal anything.”

Clint squirms a little and looks at Phil sideways, peeking out from under his eyelashes.

“That’s pretty decent,” he says softly, and squirms some more.

“What on earth is the matter?” asks Phil curiously.

Clint slides sinuously down off the sofa, letting the cushion catch the back of his Inu Yasha t-shirt so that it rucks up under his arms, revealing the muscled expanse of his belly and chest, and the silver rings in his nipples. He sits back on his heels on the floor for a few seconds, ducking his head like he’s  embarrassed, but peering at Phil the whole time. He has to take the few seconds to get his breathing under control.

“I thought,” he says coyly, blinking innocently at the older man out of eyes made huge by the black outlines, “that maybe…” He leans forwards, goes onto his hands and knees, and starts to crawl over to where Phil sits. He pulls out every ounce of muscled grace he’s got and he slinks, he stalks, he works his way over to Phil’s chair. Phil’s staring at him in fascination. “I could…” He stretches out the last few feet, prostrating himself momentarily at Phil’s feet before he uses his hands to pull himself up Phil’s leg, letting his hips roll and wiggle just a little as he pulls himself up, until his hands are on top of Phil’s knee and he rests his chin on top of them. “…pay for my keep some other way.” He blinks innocently up at Phil at the same time that he cracks his best wicked, bad boy grin.

“Don’t be absurd,” says Phil coolly. Oh, his voice is cool all right, but the tips of his fingers are white where he’s pressinig them against his thighs. His pupils are the tiniest bit dilated. Yeah, this is pretty much working for him _so_ hard. “I won’t take advantage of someone as clearly misguided as you are.”

“Aw, c’mon, Mister,” Clint coaxes, putting a little bit of whine in his voice. He slowly pulls himself up further, until he’s kneeling in front of Phil, and leans in closer, looking into his amused, slightly scandalized, yet definitely interested blue eyes. “I know you gotta wanna. I saw you lookin.” He crawls the rest of the way up into Phil’s lap, his knees on either side of Phil’s thighs. Phil, whose reflexes are certainly good enough to have stopped him, lifts his hands in protest just a few seconds too slow. Clint links his fingers together behind his head and does a dirty little bump and grind on Phil’s crotch, which is not nearly as unaffected as his voice. He lets his eyelids flutter closed a little. “ _Ohhh_ yeah,” he whispers. “You wanna.”

Phil’s hands grip his hips suddenly, hard as iron, his fingers digging in sharply. Clint moans a breathy little moan.

“Stop this at once,” says Phil sternly, his tone completely belying the fact that he is in fact HOLDING ON to Clint and not trying to push him away.

“I’d be real good for you, Mister,” pleads Clint, letting his voice go a little high and breathless. “I’ll go down on you, suck your cock. You’d like that, right? Let me use my mouth on you? Bet I could make you come that way. If you wanna I’ll let you….” He gulps. “I’ll let you f…fuck me. In my….,” he shivers a little. “In my asshole. Please say yes, Mister.”

Phil forcibly restrains Clint’s hips from rocking against him. Then  he lets go with one hand and grabs a fistful of Inu Yasha, yanking Clint’s face down closer to his own. Clint’s completely unable to repress his eager whimper.

“I most certainly will not,” Phil says angrily (which is probably not that easy right now, because he’s having a really hard time not smiling while he says is, but that’s okay)

Clint pouts a little. Phil’s fingers on his hips grip convulsively .Clint puts his hands on Phil’s shoulders and presses himself down harder against his lover’s erection. Phil closes his eyes and sucks his breath in sharply through his nose.

“C’mon, Mister. It’ll be so good. I’ll suck your cock nice an hard. I won’t stop til you make me. Bet you’d like it, fuckin’ my mouth,” he urges. “I can feel you’re hard for me, feel it in your pants. It feels good rubbin’ against me. C’mon Mister, you can fuck my mouth all you want, I won’t try to stop you. Then if you wanna,” he continues, noticing that Phil’s not holding on very tight and rotating his pelvis it tight little circles, the friction of their dicks rubbing together through denim and wool making him bite his lip again. “If you wanna, you can fuck me. Put your cock in my ass. Feels like you’re big, Mister. Prolly…prolly hurt….a little. Oh. But it’ll be so good. You’ll like it, pushing your fat cock into my hole, makin me whimper n shiver, fillin me right up.”

“I am going straight to hell,” mutters Phil, then he tugs harder on Clint’s shirt and pulls his head down for a kiss. Clint, who has been told by more than one person, including Phil, that he’s an amazing kisser, returns the kiss with shy hesitation. He makes it a little awkward, lets Phil take the lead, showing his inexperience. Phil makes a noice in the back of his throat, a pleased, possessive growl that makes Clint shiver. Phil stands up suddenly, his arms wrapped around Clint’s thighs, and carries him back to the bedroom without breaking the kiss. He stands Clint in front of him and slowly pulls the t-shirt over Clint’s  head. He gently touches the pierced nipples, making Clint gasp and squirm.

“I just got em done, Mister,” he whines. “They’re kinda sore.”

Phil tugs very lightly on both rings. The ache in his nipples throws Clint’s head back on a needy moan. Phil’s hands are on the waistband of his jeans, popping open the top button, tracing his fingers gently along the paler skin below Clint’s waistline. The zipper is pulled down slowly, and Phil starts to tug them down. Clint grabs his pants by the waistbacnd and tries to keep them up.

“Wait,” he says nervously. “Could we….can’t I just…suck you off instead?”

“You’ve never done this before,” says Phil kindly. It’s not really a question, it’s more like Phil acknowledging that he’s suddenly figured out that’s how Clint wants to play this.

“Nuh uh.”

“That’s ok, beautiful boy,” says Phil. “I have.”

He steps back, takes off his jacket, tie, and shirt. Then he toes off his shoes and socks and removes his pants as well. He lays down on the bed, leaving his boxers on for now, though Clint thinks it looks a bit like Coulson’s cock is going to burst out of them at any moment. Phil tugs him gently by the wrist until he’s lying on the bed beside Phil, pressed up alongside him, with Phil’s fingers stroking gentle circles on his back and down towards his waist. Clint sighs and presses himself closer, hiding his face in Phil’s neck as the gentle, skilled fingers trace his hipbone where the jeans ride low, glide along his back and down his spine to dip just barely under his waistband in back, the tip of his finger barely touching the top of the crack of Clint’s ass, making him shudder. He gently pushes Clint back a little so he can kiss him again, those fingers gliding along his belly where the muscles quiver at his touch, eases Clint’s zipper down, and touches his rock hard dick with his fingertips.

Clint gasps in shock, his body going rigid.

“Oh!” he cries, sounding shocked and startled.

“Does it feel nice?” whispers Phil softly, like he’s talking to a frightened animal he doesn’t want to scare away.

“Uh huh,” Clint whispers back. “Is it…would it be okay if I touch you too?” he asks hesitantly.

“More than okay, baby boy,” Phil assures him.

Clint enjoys himself ridiculously, treating Phil’s cock as though he’s never seen one but his own before, touching it tentatively with one fingertip, tracing the ridge of it through Phil’s boxers, pressing the palm of his hand down and rubbing a little.

“Could….” he swallows hard. “Could you take em off?”

“All right,” says Phil, and lifts his hips a little, sliding his boxers down his legs. Clint backs off and just looks at him for a minute, making his eyes big and round.

“It’s…geez Mister, it’s really big,” he breathes nervously.

“Not so big,” says Phil humorously.

“Do…do you want me to use my mouth on you?”

“If you like,” Coulson says, and his words are just a little bit breathless. Clint nods jerkily and leans down slowly. He sticks the tip of his tongue out and touches it to the tip of Phil’s cock. Tentatively, he licks his way up and down the underside with little catlike flicks of his tongue. Phil makes a muffled sound in his chest. Clint takes a deep, shaky, nervous breath and slowly lowers his mouth over his lover’s cock. He hasn’t been doing this long, but Phil claims he’s a natural at it. Tonight though, he’s not. He’s a little scared, a little self-conscious, but eager to please. Phil’s hands are clenched in the bedspread as he forces himself not to move, not to frighten the inexperienced boy inexpertly going down on him.

“M I doin it okay?” Clint mumbles, pulling back a little.

“Wonderful, baby boy, you’re doing great,” Phil assures him. Since Clint is distracted by his intense concentration on trying so hard to please the older man, Phil takes advantage of his inattention and tugs his tight jeans down past his hips, palming his erection through what Phil now sees are Gryffindor boxer shorts. His body vibrates with the need to laugh. Clint’s glad his mouth is full of Phil because he’s not sure he could stop himself half so well. He moans around his mouthful instead, going with shocked and needy when he feels the hand on his dick. Phil sucks in another deep breath at the vibration the sound causes. Phil lets him lick and suck and tentatively stroke for what seems like forever. Clint’s impressed with his restraint, because Phil’s cock is positively pulsing with need in his mouth. Eventually though, Phil stops him, pushing him gently over onto his back. Clint whimpers. Phil closes his eyes for a second.

“God damn,” whispers Coulson feelingly. Clint bites his lip. To keep from smiling, mainly.

Phil gently explores the boy’s body with his clever fingers, stroking him, gentling his nervous tremors, making him shiver and gasp. Clint is shuddering with desperation when Phil finally reaches over to the bedside table for the bottle of lube.

“What….what’re you gonna do with that?” he asks breathlessly.

“I’m going to use it to make you nice and slick inside,” Phil replies.

“You mean in my asshole,” says Clint in a tiny, scared voice. Phil’s cock twitches at the sound.

“Yes, baby boy, in your asshole.”

“So…so you can fuck me.” Clint’s voice is nearly inaudible.

“I’m going to open you up a little bit first, don’t worry,” Phil assures him. “But yes. I’m going to fuck you.”

“Will it….will it hurt?” pleads Clint. He’s so hard he could die. There’s a huge part of him that wants to just start babbling mindlessly and beg Phil to fuck him NOW, but this anticipation, this fantasy, the nerves and inexperience and fear, it’s all too delicious to stop.

“A little,” says Phil.

“If….oh….if I cry, will you stop?” This last little plea is nearly too much for both of them. Phil’s shuts his eyes again, muttering soundlessly to himself, and it looks like his lips are saying something like “Motherfucking hell, he’s going to kill me,” but he’s not certain, because he’s biting his lips hard to keep from groaning and losing it altogether. Phil masters his expression and opens his eyes. They are hot and fierce and possessive.

“No,” he says firmly, and slides his index finger into the boy’s tight little hole.

“Ahh,” cries Clint, hands grabbing reflexively at Phil’s shoulders. The finger wriggles a little inside him, making him squirm and gasp.

“How does that feel?” asks Phil, his voice gone rough with desire.

“It’s weird,” Clint complains, squirming harder. Phil’s finger slides slowly out and back in, stroking over Clint’s prostate and sending sparks prickling through his whole body.

“Bad weird or good weird?” asks Coulson, smiling gently.

“OH! Oh god, Mister. Uh…good,” gasps Clint.

Phil spends several minutes on just one finger, stroking and gently pumping in and out. Clint’s hips rock with his thrusts, and he vocalizes his confusion and pleasure with little gasps and breathy moans and whimpers. What he’d really like to do is beg Phil for more, but this is amazing too. Carefully, Phil adds a second finger. Clint’s not sore anymore from the week before. There are only a couple of days left. But he is very, VERY tight, so he stiffens in shock and makes a strangled sound. Phil holds still and lets him adjust.

“God! Mister!” cries Clint.

“Does it hurt?”

“N..no.”

“Good,” says Phil, and pushes the second finger all the way in. He goes to work now, opening Clint’s hole, twisting and pumping his fingers steadily but not too forcefully, scissoring them until Clint clutches him and cries out frantically.

“It’s….I…. _hnn_ ….ohhfuck Mister!”

“Watch your language, baby boy,” says Phil sternly. “You wouldn’t want me to have to spank you.” Clint, who has both eyes screwed tight shut, opens one of them and _looks_ at Phil.

“Fffuuuuuuckkkkk,” he whispers, hips rocking his hole back onto Phil’s fingers. This time Phil can’t quite contain the chuckle, but Clint finds himself flipped over on his stomach before he can blink, crying out in shock when the palm of Phil’s hand connects with his squirming backside with a stinging slap.

“Naughty little boys who say bad words get spanked,” growls Phil, and then does one of the most erotic things Clint’s ever felt. He pushes his two fingers back into the boy’s squirming asshole and keeps spanking him. The slaps are enough to sting and make Clint gasp and whimper, but not enough to leave marks.

“I…ohgod…I’m sorry, Mister! Shit!” he yelps. Phil forces his legs open with his knee and spanks his inner thighs, one after the other, about a dozen times, while Clint wails and trembles.

“Ow, ow, ow,” he cries. “Please STOP! I’m sorry, I won’t do it anymore! I’m sorry! Owww _fuck,_ ” Clint hollers, having the best time. He’s glad his face is buried in his arms, because he’s grinning like a moron. Phil spanks his legs harder, and his skin is so tender there that it ignites under the slaps, burning and stinging, blushing a dark red. Clint tries desperately to close his legs. Phil doesn’t let him, instead forcing them open even further, his stinging slaps so close to the juncture of the boy’s thighs now that his fingers are in danger of grazing his balls. Clint writhes and ruts himself shamelessly against the bedspread.

“I think you like this, dirty little boy,” growls Phil. “Look at you, desperate to fuck yourself on my mattress, wiggling like an eager little cockslut while I spank you.”

“No!” cries Clint, doing it harder. “I don’t like it! It hurts!”

“Are you going to watch your mouth?” Phil demands roughly.

“Yes! Yesyesyes! I promise! Please!”

Phil relents at last, which is a good thing, because Clint’s going to fucking come in a minute if he doesn’t. His fingers work harder and deeper in the boy’s hole, which is not so tight anymore. If they were fucking just for fun and not pain, Phil would continue on to three fingers before getting to the main event. When he pulls his fingers out and Clint feels him shift to lower himself onto Clint, he bites his lip but he’s smiling. He’s prepped enough that it won’t hurt a lot, but Phil wants him to feel the stretch, make it work with the roles they’re playing.

“It’s time, baby boy,” he says quietly, and Clint shudders when the head of Phil’s cock nudges slowly between his cheeks, bumping against his hole.

“Wait!” he pleads desperately. “I’m not….I mean I don’t…Please, Mister, I’m not ready!”

“You are,” Phil assures him, starting to slowly push his way in. Clint whimpers and his hands scrabble at the covers.

“Ohgod Ohgod,” he cries. “No, please, don’t!”

“Shh,” says Phil, pushing in slowly.

“Oh… _hnng_ ….it hurts, Mister! _Guh….._ please, please don’t fuck me! _Oww…_ oh it’s too big, it won’t…. _ungh…_ won’t fit!”

“It’ll fit,” growls Phil. “I’ll just have to _push_ ,” and his hips shove a little, wrenching a strangled cry from Clint, “harder.”

Clint lets himself cry a little, not because Phil’s actually hurting him. It feels fanfuckingtastic and honestly he wants Phil to fuck him into the mattress right about now, but he’s got enough emotion built up over what’s coming that it’s not very hard to let some of it out, and it just flat fucking _does_ it for Phil when he cries a little while he’s getting fucked. He whimpers and pleads and squirms, a few tears rolling fat and slow down his cheeks. Phil’s gentle fingers take one from his skin and Clint watches, eyes wide and wet, as he licks it off his fingertip. Clint buries his face in a pillow and groans harshly, unable to keep his hips from rising too meet Phil’s next thrust. It’s too fucking good, too sweet, to not respond the way his body desperately needs to.

“ _Ohhhhhh,_ ” he sighs.

“Better?” asks Phil, stroking his hair gently.

“Umhmm,” Clint nods, hips rolling.

“That’s a good boy. Feels good when I fuck you, doesn’t it?”

“Oh god, Mister,” he whimpers. “You feel so good. Fuckin my ass, glad it was you, bustin my cherry. _Ungh._ You fill me up. ‘S almost too much. Hurts a little. _Ohgod._ Your cock feels so good in me. Do it, Mister. Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me,” he chants, breathless and needy. Phil plants his hands on either side of Clint’s shoulders and _fucks._ Clint throws his head back, eyes clenched shut, and shouts. He’s going to fucking explode.

“Please,” he cries. “Oh please. Sir please. I need to….I need to _come._ ”

Phil snarls and fucks harder. Clint keens and whines, bucking up against Phil, panting out desperate pleas. He’s going to go off without Phil touching him again. It stuns him that he can, would have never believed that was possible. However ,Phil hauls back on his hips until he’s on his knees, forcing him open further, drilling his hole hard and deep while he shouts and begs.

“Touch yourself,” he snarls in Clint’s ear. “Fuck your fist, little boy. I’m going to come in your tight little ass, and you’re going to come too.”

Clint shivers and wraps his hand around his aching cock, squeezing and sliding, panting desperately. Phil makes a savage noise and his fingers clench hard on the boy’s hips.

“Come for me, baby boy,” he hisses. “Come Clint, come _now.”_

Clint does, howling and shaking, Phil’s hips snapping hard into him, his guttural roar as he empties himself into Clint’s body shaking them both. When they both stop shuddering and gasping, Phil rolls onto his side, taking Clint with him, slipping out of his body slowly. There’s no pain at all, so Clint just sighs a little at the few moments of emptiness he feels when Phil withdraws. There are always tssues by the bed now, so they don’t have to get up until they’re ready for a more thorough cleanup.

“So,” says Clint, his voice a little shaky. “That was…”

“It really was,” Phil agrees fervently. They just lay there for a few minutes, Phil’s fingers tracing idle circles on Clint’s arm, Clint hugging Phil’s other arm tight against his chest.

At length, Phil raises his head to look down at the smugly contented archer in his arms.

“Really, Clint?” he says bemusedly, his fingers carding through Hawkeye’s hair. “Purple?”


	6. Part Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a lot of allusions to sex, a lot of thinking about sex, and some talking about sex, but doesn't actually contain any sex. It is, essentially, setup for the final section in this kidnapping mission, except between Natasha and Clint, but that pretty much happens "off camera."

Somewhat to his chagrin, when he’s trotting back to the room he’s sharing with Tasha the next morning, he runs into her just getting back from Malibu. He’s uncoding the door when he senses her walk up behind him. He’s still wearing the skinny jeans, Inu Yasha t-shirt (which ok, he chose because he has a secret weakness for Anime), high tops, severa,l dozen silly bracelets and slightly smudged eyeliner. He turns to face her and she freezes. For a split second, she just blinks at him.

“Jesus, Barton,” she says, and he can’t tell if her voice is horrified or amused. After some of the things they’ve been through and done together, he supposes it can be both. “You look like you’re about seventeen.”

“Um,” he says intelligently.

She follows him through the door still staring at him in fascination.

“You have purple hair,” she murmurs wonderingly.

“Well, they said dramatically different,” he mutters a little defensively.

“It’s different all right. Did Phil fuck you dressed like that?” She’s intensely curious. He’s pretty sure she’d still trying to decide how she feels about what he looks like.

“Well….no. I was only wearing the bracelets, earrings, and….um.” He realizes she hasn’t seen the piercings yet.

“And?”

He pulls his shirt up and shows her.

“Wow. Did it hurt?”

“Yeah.” He grins crookedly at her.

“Sick bastard. You liked it.”

“Well duh. Who’re you talking to here?”

“Sorry, the purple hair threw me,” she retorts.

“Do you hate it?”

She frowns a little, thinking about it.

“No,” she says finally. “It’s just probably going to make me feel like a cradle robber to have sex with you until it washes out. It is going to wash out, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Look at it this way. We can play headmistress and student. Police officer and teenaged car thief. Hot experienced next door neighbor and awkward virgin….”

She watches him, a bemused look on his face as he rattles off every teenaged boy’s wet dream he can think of. Several of them he just makes up on the spot.

“Do you sit around and think about sex ALL the time?” she interrupts him finally.

“I’m thinking about it _now_ ,” he confesses with a slight leer.

She looks at him consideringly.

“Okay,” she says finally, and just starts shimmying out of her uniform. “But you’re not wearing that outfit. Guys in orange samurai pajamas with ears and fluffy tails aren’t my thing.”

He pulls the t-shirt over his head first, thumbs open the button on his jeans. Tasha’s always had this thing about him shirtless, half-dressed. He’s still feeling awfully self-conscious about her seeing him like this, so he ducks his head a little peeks up at her through his eyelashes.

“Shit, Clint,” she says in a voice that sounds about half guilt-ridden. “If you don’t stop being adorable, I’m going to hurt you.”

“You don’t have to,” he whispers, hunching his shoulders and staring at his toes. He’s embarrassed, but she’s looking at him like he’s candy….candy she’s maybe not sure she’s supposed to have, but still. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to go with that, or try really hard to make her forget about the hair and stuff. “I’ll do whatever you want me to.”

Now the expression on her face has definitely decided to be interested.

“Really….” She speculates. “Anything?” She runs a fingernail from his belly button up to his left nipple, flicking the ring and making him gasp.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he whispers fervently. “Anything.”

“Tell you one thing,” she mutters as she turns and walks naked to the bedroom, crooking her finger at him to get him to follow. “Until all that washes out, you get to be my little bitch in the bedroom. I can’t take orders from a grape snow cone.”

He’s trying to shimmy out of the skinny jeans, which isn’t exactly easy since they’re practically painted on, when she says this. It makes him laugh, which messes up his focus, and he falls over. She looks down at him over the edge of the bed, and her grin is nasty.

“Get your ass up off the floor, you degenerate little shit, and let’s see how many times you can make me come before you can’t hold out anymore. And Clint?”

“Yes Ma’am?” he asks with a snarky smirk.

“Better hold out a long time.”

 

It’s too soon. He’s not ready. He’s been so immersed in training sessions, planning sessions, tech run throughs, wardrobe function tests,  that he hasn’t thought too much about how fast the days have gone by. Now it’s today, and in a few hours he’s going to walk through the door of a BDSM club looking like a gay pervert’s wet dream, alone, collarless, and he’s going to offer himself to a man they all believe to be a monster. He’s sitting in a dentist’s chair in medical with his mouth held open by some kind of metal thing, staring at the ceiling while one of his back molars is fitted with a cap filled with sleeping gas. Now he has to add not gritting his teeth to the list of other shit he has to remember. Well, at least not until he’s alone with Vespucci in his bedroom. Or whatever. Then he’s supposed to make sure the man gets really close, break the cap, blow in his face, and he’s home free. Which sounds great in theory, but not if the only part of his head Vespucci’s interested in seeing that close-up is the top or back of it.

Phil’s being bleak and grim again, and Tasha’s stomping around in her boots to make sure she can do martial arts in them (she really can) and looking like she’s searching for someone to kill. He wants somebody to tell him this is all going to be fine, but he’s too worried about both of them just exploding to ask. He’s not afraid of any kind of pain Vespucci might inflict on him. The only reason Phil and Tasha can reduce him to a quivering mess of desperate pleas is because he wants it with them. He’s been beaten before, with fists and a cat o nine tails that had glued knots in it and bits of metal at the tips, and once with a baseball bat. He’s had bones broken, been tased and electrocuted, and had cigars put out on his skin. It’s not like he enjoyed any of it, because he really, really hadn’t, but he’d never broken either. He doesn’t, unless he wants to. That’s not why this is tying him up in knots.

He can’t bear the thought of letting another Dominant (even if he’s not deserving of the title) do anything like the things Phil does to him. The very thought of allowing another man lay hands on his Master’s property makes him feel sick. The knowledge that watching another cause him pain while being unable to stop it, to help him, like she always has, is going to be horrible for Tasha, wrenches at his guts. _They_ are the only ones who touch him this way. He knows perfectly well he can do this, he’s just nauseated by the thought that he has to. It feels like he’s betraying them. After medical finishes with his tooth (courtesy of Tony Stark), he flees the lab and heads up to the roof. Not the helipad, the other side, where there are only vents and heating and air conditioning units and some sensor arrays. He wedges himself down between two hvac units and sits, his shoulders hunched miserably around his ears, and stares out over the city. The sky is grey. Amid the salt air scent, he can smell rain coming. The wind isn’t cold, exactly, but it is a little chilly. He sighs, and wraps his arms around his chest, brooding. He hasn’t done this in a long time, finding a perch to hide in. But he doesn’t know where else to go. Doesn’t know how to talk to Phil or Tasha about this. He can’t bear to add to their already considerable concern about tonight. He’ll pull it together in a little bit, go suit up, become Hawkeye in disguise, do the job. But not yet.  Just….not yet.

The roof has fine gravel on it, so it’s really not hard to hear the footsteps, even over the sound of the wind and the compressors. He sighs. She’ll bitch at him for moping. It pisses her of when he hides. He’s not going to tell her why, so he figures he’ll apologize, tell her he’s just nervous and suck it up.

“We’re sorry, Clint,” she says softly. He’s already opening his mouth to say the same thing, which sort of leaves him sitting there with his mouth open. He turns to look over his shoulder. Natasha and Phil are standing there, their faces solemn.

“What?” he asks blankly. This isn’t how he saw this going at all. They’re not both supposed to be here. What the hell is he supposed to say to them?

“Will you come back downstairs with us and let’s talk? Please?” asks Phil. The bleak expression isn’t there anymore. He looks sad.

“Yes Master,” he murmurs, scrambling to his feet.

“It wasn’t an order, Clint,” says Phil gently. “We’d just like it if you would. If you want to stay here, you’re allowed to do that.”

He’s starting to feel really weird. He shoves his hands in his pockets and scrunches his shoulders up even further.

“It’s okay. I’ll come with you.”

He doesn’t know how to do anything else, after all. He follows them, his stomach a churning turmoil of confusion. He’s never had anything good come out of a conversation that starts with “let’s talk.” He’s already feeling like shit about tonight, and now he has the horrible feeling that Phil’s going to tell him what a mistake this has all been, that since obviously they’re going to continue to have to work together from time to time, they can no longer be lovers, and he’ll take back his collar and Clint’s whole world will burn to ash and it’ll come between him and Tasha too because she’s the one who pushed him into Phil’s arms after all. He’ll try not to resent it, but he will. And she’ll try not to get frustrated with him for mourning over Phil when she should be enough for him. It’s what happens eventually. Him and relationships have never been on very good terms. His life’s been too good for too long.

He walks through the door to Phil’s rooms behind them, staring fixedly at the ground, trying hard to get his emotions under control, trying to throttle down on the ache in his heart, convince himself he can get out the words, “No, it’s okay. I understand.” He’s staring so hard at the floor that he runs right into both of them. He tries to stagger back, stammer out an apology, but he finds himself surrounded. Phil wraps one arm around his back and slides the other hands into his hair, pulling his head forward gently until it rests on Phil’s shoulders. Tasha, who hates…no she really HATES hugs, presses herself up against him from behind so tight you couldn’t fit a piece of paper between them. She lays her cheek on the back of his shoulder blade and sighs, her hands sliding along his hips where he’s pressed up against Phil. This….This really doesn’t feel like a goodbye hug.

“Clint,” whispers Phil against his ridiculous purple hair. “I’m so sorry.”

“We both are,” mumbles Tasha.

What the fuck?

“We have both been so caught up in being pissed off at what we’re going to have to put you through tonight, so worried about it, so consumed by our own feelings…”

“We were being selfish,” says Tasha, still sort of talking into his shirt. Phil continues.

“Natasha’s right, Clint. All both of us have been thinking about all day is our own feelings. We love you, and we wish we could protect you, and I’ve been dwelling on how angry the whole idea of this makes me, how I’d really like to punch Nick’s lights out, how I’d rather just put a bullet in Vespucci’s skull than go through with this….”

“I’m so sorry,” whispers Clint desolately.

“NO,” says Phil fiercely. “You do not apologize for this. Both of us have been so GODdamned concerned with being pissed off and outraged that _we_ were going to have to watch you with another man that we haven’t thought all day about how you had to be feeling.”

Somehow now they’re on the couch now, in a kind of weird and confusing tangle that’s dangerously close to a cuddle. They’re almost petting him, and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with his hands. He knows what to do when it comes to sex, but this is about something else and he’s never really had it before. He feels _cherished_.

“You don’t have to be afraid, Clint,” says Tasha, running her fingernails through his hair, her nails scratching his scalp lightly. Normally this makes him sigh and want her to do it harder. Not today. He lifts his head off Phil’s chest and stares at her in bewilderment.

“I what now?”

“We’re not going to let anything happen to you. We’ll be listening, and if anything bad happens, we’ll come in and get you out, potential kidnap victims be damned,” she says fiercely.

“Tasha…” he says, but she keeps going.

“I promise, Clint. We talked about it, and we don’t care if it scrubs the op. There is no way in hell we’re going to let that…”

“Tasha, shut up,” he says harshly. She stares at him openmouthed for a second, then closes her mouth firmly.

“You think this is because I’m _scared_?” he asks incredulously, dangerously close to laughing out loud.

“Well,” says Phil mildly. “Yes. What is it then?”

“When has either of you ever known me to be scared before an op?” he asks, struggling into a more or less upright position. “For fuck’s sake, is it going to be any worse than North Korea?”

Both of them start to look a little bit chagrined. He pulls the neck of his t-shirt down and stabs his finger at one of the burn scars.

“Is he going to break my fingers with a ball peen hammer? Is he going to hook me up to his car battery and try to jump start me? Stab me in the leg and open up an artery? Kick me in the ribs until they try to punch through my lungs? Cause guys. Been there, done that.”

“All right then,” says Phil, “What…”

“I belong to you,” cries Clint desperately. “Tasha and I…we’re….we’re best friends, fucking soulmates, we forget where one of us ends and the other begins sometimes. We’ve dragged each other backwards through more emotional and literal shit than any two human beings on earth. We’re like halves of the same coin and it’s _awesome_ and I hate the idea that she’s going to have to sit on her hands and watch me with this asshole. She has seen me take worse, but I hate that it’s going to kill her to sit there and pretend she doesn’t care. But….Jesus. Phil. I. Belong. To. You. This body,” he runs his hand down his belly and thigh. “It’s _yours_. I can’t….if I let…. _him_ ….touch me, it feels like I’ll be betraying you. I can’t see how…” his breath hitches and he squeezes his eyes shut because _shit_ he’s about to cry and that’s _stupid._ “I can’t see how you’d take me back.”

Phil lifts his chin up and stares into his eyes.

“Did you say you belong to me or not?” he asks. His voice is nearly glacial, and Clint’s mouth goes dry as he tries to figure out what he’s said that has made Phil so angry.

“Yes,” he whispers miserably.

“Are you asking me to release you, boy?” he hisses, and Clint swallows hard.

“No Sir. Never.”

“Never?” breathes Phil dangerously. Clint feels Tasha kiss him softly on the back of his neck, telling him it’s okay.

“N…never,” he says breathlessly.

“Then don’t you _dare_ presume that your feelings for me are any deeper or more devoted than mine for you, little boy, or when this is done you will get one _hell_ of a lesson in who you belong to.”

Clint makes a small, helpless noise in his throat when Phil’s fingers tighten on his jaw and pull him closer, kissing him hard, all teeth and tongues and possession. Two tears escape the corners of his eyes where he has them squeezed tightly shut. In his imagination, they probably taste like sunshine.

 

They go over the plan one more time. Clint’s nipple ring transmitter has been tested and tested so many times he’s starting to think he may spend the rest of his life answering questions by looking down at his own chest. The cap is secure, it’s not going to come loose and knock him out by accident. Their i.d.’s are in place, they all even have a little bit of backstory made up. Well, Phil’s is mostly true, except for what he does for a living, because he’s been to the club before, as himself. Clint’s using the name Robert (you can call me Bobby if you want to) Bowman. It’s supposed to be cheesy and obvious, of course. Natasha’s using Natalie Richards. It’s one she’s comfortable with anyway. She’s wearing a light brown wig made out of real human hair that is so secure on her head it would probably survive a catfight. Not that Natasha would ever get in one. She thinks slapping and hair-pulling outside of sex is for pussies. He’d kill to be there the first time some drunk chick in a bar thinks Tasha’s hitting on her man and tries to bitch-slap her. He doesn’t know if it’d be funnier for Tasha to punch the girl’s nose through the back of her skull or throw her through a window. Her blue eyes have turned chocolate brown with the aid of colored contacts. She’s wearing her corset, skirt and boots, as well as wrist cuffs and the collar that came with Clint’s harness. There’s a leash attached to it. Rather than being annoyed at the affectation of this prop, Tasha is wickedly pleased with it. He’s confused about why until she whips it around his neck and pulls. Just a little. Of course. Now he’s almost wishing the entire night would collapse into an enormous free for all at the club itself, because BDSM toys can mostly all be used as effective weapons, and Tasha wading through hordes of….evildoing kinky people? Ok so sue him if he hasn’t got a justification for the scenario, he’s just overcome with images of her whamming fetish-clad bad guys left and right with a leash chain in one hand and a bullwhip in the other. His musings are cut abruptly short by Phil’s arrival in the ready room. He’s carrying his toy bag and another large case which Clint knows contains surveillance equipment, breaking and entering tools, and several guns. He has to just stand there and blink for a few minutes. Phil Coulson wears a tailored suit almost every day of his life, including some weekends, because he doesn’t always get weekends off. It had startled Clint badly when they’d spent their first of Phil’s days off together just lounging around Phil’s rooms and he’d gotten to see the man in sweat pants and a t-shirt. Phil owns casual clothes, but even they are still pretty classy and look bespoke as opposed to off the rack. Clint doesn’t suppose Phil actually has his entire wardrobe custom made, he’s just got a great body for wearing nice clothes, with his shoulders (broad but not ridiculously so), his trim waist, flat stomach, and surprisingly great ass. Tonight though, Phil Coulson makes Clint’s mouth water.

The handler steps calmly into the room and sets both cases down. He bends down a bit to do so, setting them gently on the floor instead of dropping them, and the ink-black jeans he’s wearing are tight around his thighs and ass. They’re not painted-on tight, that would be tacky, and Phil is never tacky. They are just perfectly fitted to Phil’s body. He’s not wearing them tucked into his boots, so Clint can’t be sure what kind they are, but he thinks they’re engineer boots, and also that they’re hot as hell. The leather belt around Coulson’s waist is two inches wide and at least an eighth of an inch thick. It is heavy, but unadorned by any affectations such as studs or o-rings or spikes. It has a plain, flat, brushed steel buckle that gleams faintly against the solid black of leather and denim. Clint’s all-encompassing thoughts in that moment are why the fuck Phil’s never used it on him and how he can get him to do so. He discovers the hard way that an erection in his leather pants is not a lot of fun. Phil’s shirt is not dissimilar from any of the myriad of white dress shirts he wears every day. Clint knows that it is Brooks Brothers, but it looks so different tonight that it’s hard to recognize. The sleeves are rolled up, exposing Phil’s tanned, muscular forearms. Clint doesn’t think he’s ever seen Coulson with his sleeves rolled up. He’s not wearing a tie, and the top two (not one, but TWO) buttons are undone, showing a slender vee of skin at Phil’s throat and dipping down just past his collarbone. He has no idea why this is so absurdly sexy. It just is. Probably because Phil just never looks like this. Over the snowy white of his shirt, he’s wearing a black leather vest. It isn’t cheesy, it’s a real motorcycle vest, which Clint actually knew Phil had, because he knows how to ride, he just hasn’t had a bike for a couple of years. There’s a single slender leather band around Phil’s right wrist, looking for all the world like an ordinary bracelet, but it’s actually got a slender silver piano wire wrapped between the two layers of glued-together leather that make up the bracelet. Phil’s wearing two silver rings, one on each hand. One of them contains a panic button which will summon the cavalry in case things go very bad too fast for the three of them to contain. The other one is a plain silver band with a repetitive pattern of hawks in flight engraved around it and filled in with black. You can’t tell what they are unless you’re very close, but Phil had shown the birds to Clint last night.

“I’ll be keeping you close, beautiful boy,” he’d said, and he’d smiled, and Clint had known everything would be okay.

Phil sees Clint eyeballing him and smiles.

“Satisfied?” he asks, holding his hands out to the sides.

“Not nearly,” says Clint fervently. “But I really, really hope to be once this is finished.”

“You look amazing, Coulson,” says Tasha, rolling her eyes at Clint. “Very authoritative.”

“Thank you, children. Shall we get this show on the road?”

There’s nothing for it but to do so. Although Phil and Tasha will arrive at the club in Phil’s cobra and Clint will follow some time later in a crappy little civic that has fading paint and a few bumps and bruises, Phil drives most of the way in the civic with Clint, letting Tasha drive the cobra, which Clint can tell she hates. Hates so much she drives it like she’s stolen it. Tasha has a weakness for classic sports cars. In the car, Phil coaches him again on what he’s supposed to do. He knows all of it already, but Phil has _always_ coached him half to death before every op, and to Clint’s immense relief, they slip into the same old patterns easily. He’s relieved because they’re just asking for trouble if they can’t separate a little and slide into their new roles for the night. He has to admit he doesn’t hate it though, when Phil reaches into his pocket as they pull up to the gas station where he’s switching back over to the cobra, and pulls out an end of Clint’s collar.

“The moment it’s done,” he promises solemnly. They have gotten out of the car so they can all have one last word or so as themselves before they do this. He and Tasha don’t really need it. They have never really needed a lot of words. They’ve grown accustomed to separating, to doing the job, then reconnecting when it’s done, because they’ve done it for years as just friends. Phil, however, seems to understand that Clint needs something different from him.

“Thank you Sir,” he says, grateful that Phil has brought it with him. He despises how his neck feels without it so bitterly he’s surprised at himself. He’s only been wearing it a couple of months, yet its loss is as awful as he imagines losing his hands would be. And that’s a fuckton of awful, because he’s nothing without his hands.  He’s horribly naked and lost without the weight of it around his throat, the slide of it on his skin, warm and reassuring. He knows he’s acting like an idiot about it, and he’d have thought he’d have been beyond things having so much importance to him, since he got used to moving all the time and never having much he could call his own. Huh. Maybe that’s why it’s so important.

“Clint,” says Phil gently, and that’s weird, because the op has started now, and Phil has never called him Clint on an op. He realizes he’s been staring at his feet again, so he looks up, discomfited. “Look at me, Clint.” Phil’s voice is warm, his tone is kind and gentle. Clint sways a little, having to resist his body’s wish to lean into Phil. He looks though. “Good boy. Now listen, too.”

“Yes Sir,” he breathes.

“Clint, who am I?” Clint’s confused a little now, because he’s always Sir on an op, knows this is what he’s supposed to do, pull away, keep the distance. It’s churning up his insides like a meat grinder, but he knows it’s what SHIELD expects. Phil steps closer, and it crowds him against the door of the shitty little car. This isn’t normal at all, and the way Phil’s looking at him isn’t the slightest bit professional.

“I….” he starts, and bites his lip. He doesn’t know how to answer.

“The truth ,Clint. Who am I?” He can’t lie to Phil, not even if it disappoints him.

“Master,” he whispers.

“Don’t forget it,” snaps Phil, and Clint’s head comes up from his ashamed little head-duck to stare at Phil in astonishment.

“But I....protocols….and I thought….”

“I haven’t said this to you until now because I didn’t want it to interfere with your ability to complete this mission,” says Phil quietly. “I told Fury to take this op and shove it when we filed our initial report and he came back to me with his orders. You know all that, of course. What I didn’t say was that I also told him about our relationship. Oh, don’t worry,” he rushes to reassure Clint, whose eyes open wide in horror at the thought of Nick Fury hearing the prurient details about their relationship. “Not the details. Just that there is one, and that I was therefore no longer qualified to function in the capacity of your handler. He overrode me, told me that the mission was too important to let that get in the way. I think he was trying to tell me to be a professional and make myself separate from our personal relationship for the duration, but he was sadly mistaken. This mission doesn’t just step on what we have, it stomps all over it. I can’t do that to you, beautiful boy. I love you too much. I know that you can do this, I have never doubted you. But asking you to do it while cut off from what we are, and yet immersing you in it, rubbing your face in a building full of other people who are also living it, and snatching the security of belonging to me out from under you even if it’s only for the amount of time it takes to accomplish the mission is needlessly cruel. We will all do what needs doing because we are just that good. You will walk in there with your head held high, darling boy, because you’ll know that every second, no matter what happens….Clint, NO MATTER WHAT….that I love you, and I am proud of you, and _you belong to me.”_

Four little words, and Clint’s world abruptly slides back into focus. When he walks into the club about fifteen minutes after Phil and Tasha, pays his door fee and signs a release, his gaze sweeps back and forth across the room. He catalogues all the doors in seconds, memorizes the locations of all the heavy equipment, processes how many people are in the room (twenty-seven), and pegs the mark in less than ten more, from the entryway in which he stands, having already passed through the front of the club, which is set up like a lounge. It has a lot more pillows on the floor than most lounges, though as opposed to having been flung about by a tantrum-throwing child, these are intentional. Small groupings of people are seated on couches, loveseats, and chairs, and several of the floor cushions are occupied by still more people. His brain is processing at its own unconscious blinding speed, so that he notices everything without having to stand around looking like he’s completely clueless. He does open his eyes a little wide, like he wasn’t ready for something quite this big. The dungeon, at the entrance to which he is now standing, is as nice as the private one Phil had taken him to, painted concrete floor (is blue a signature dungeon color? He supposes it is. Black and blue. Of course.) Sounds of leather (or other things) impacting flesh come from several directions. There are two men in front of one of the St. Andrew’s crosses, one of whom is naked and chained to it, the other of whom is working the former over with a thick, heavy flogger. Another man is busily fastening his…Clint’s brain ponder what you should call the guy kneeling in front of the other one….pet? sub? Pony?....because the harness has a heavy rubber bit that goes in his mouth, and the leather straps and rings and buckles look like riding tack. Of course, the long, flowing horse tail butt plug sticking out of his ass might be a hint too. Possibly. There’s a middle-aged man paddling a woman wearing a schoolgirl uniform over a padded bench. She’s yelping and promising to be good. In the back corner, where it is dim and he can’t be sure if the padded surface is a bed or a swinging platform hanging from the ceiling, he’s pretty sure he can see two men fucking. There are rules posted beside all the doors.

“What you do here, what you see here, what you say here, stays here

Practice safe, sane and consensual at all times

Dungeon Masters are wearing white arm bands. Feel free to ask them any questions you may have. Respect their authority. If you are asked by one of our DMs to stop a scene or behavior and fail to comply, you will be asked to leave

This is a pansexual facility. The sexual preferences of guests will be respected at all times.

No scat, free-flowing blood, or singletails longer than 5 feet. This is for everyone’s safety

Dispose of used piercing needles, condoms, scalpel blades, etc in the provided biohazard containers immediately after use

Unsafe sex will not be allowed. Use a condom or go home

Do not interrupt or interfere with another’s scene at any time

No fucking on the food table”

That last one cracks him the hell up. There’s a folding banquet table in the first room, along one wall, that contains two liters of soda, bottled water, and an assortment of snacks running high to sugar or protein. It looks like it’d collapse if you breathed on it too hard. Everything else in the place is pretty nice, but now he stops wondering why they haven’t replaced the rickety thing with a better one!

He sweeps his gaze over Phil and Tasha, who are sitting on one of the back to back sofas in the center of the room, placed for those who like to watch. They don’t react to his presence, but he sees Phil’s fingers rub once against the metal of his flying hawk ring.

He identifies the mark from surveillance photos. Vespucci is leaning against the Eastern wall, in conversation with a young man in a leather thong (this time, since it’s not him, Clint’s able to keep from laughing). Clint’s can’t see the sub’s face (well, he’s assuming by the smaller guy’s posture and demeanor and lack of, well, pants…) but Vespucci looks bored and superior. Clint hears the sound of someone clearing their throat in an unobtrusive way by his elbow and turns to see who it is. A young woman who looks like she’s in her low twenties is smiling at him. She introduces herself as Amber. She is the slave of Mistress Cleo, one of the owners of the club, and offers to give him a tour. He thanks her with a shy smile and accepts, introducing himself as Bobby. He’s already made note of where the bathrooms and emergency exits are, read the rules, catalogued all the play stations in his mind, but he follows her dutifully and acts interested anyway, while keeping his attention on Vespucci. He’s never done a great deal more than watch in places like this, especially not in the United States anyway, so he’s not entirely sure how to act. He does his best with excited but nervous. He also works it a little. Clint’s body is seriously ripped and he knows it. He’s as agile as a cat and more flexible than a ferret. Jane makes fun of him sometimes and tells him he has rubber bands instead of connective tissue, to which he usually responds with a leer and suggestive remark. It’s really easy to make Jane blush, incredible as that seems considering some of the things he’s seen. He doesn’t overdo it, but he lets himself appear to unconsciously move in time with the music that is playing in the dungeon as he follows Amber around. He’s introduced to a few people, and is very polite and humble. He gets a few keen looks that are followed by startled stares of recognition. That’s okay, he’d expected it, and his disguise isn’t meant to actually disguise him. As they pass by where Vespucci is standing, Clint feels the man’s eyes on him and takes the opportunity to get a good look at him. He keeps his head down and eyes lowered, and watches from the corners of his eyes. Vespucci is tall and heavily built, at least 6’2”. His black hair is heavily styled, swept back from his face and just brushing the tops of his shoulders in black waves. There’s so much product in it, Clint figures it’d probably crunch if you tried to run your fingers through it. He has the olive skin typical of his Mediterranean ancestry, black eyes that follow Clint as he saunters by in Amber’s wake, and a slightly hooked nose. He has a predatory air about him, or barely suppressed violence and anger. He’s not paying any attention at all to the boy gazing eagerly up at him. Clint senses the movement behind him after they pass and is aware that Vespucci has left his place and is following them.

“Girl,” says a deep voice behind them. Clint, though he’s at Amber’s back, sees the way she stiffens a little when Vespucci hails her. Her pause before she turns is so slight it’s probably not noticeable to anyone but Clint. When she turns, she’s painted a smile on her face.

“How may I help you, Sir?” she murmurs respectfully, ducking her head in a little bob of recognition.

“I see we have a new guest tonight,” says the Italian, his eyes fastened on Clint. His look is speculative and hungry. “I wished to meet him.”

Amber does the honors, while Clint clasps his hands behind his back and ducks his head, peering up through his eyelashes at Vespucci, whose lips twitch in an effort not to laugh when Amber says his last name is Bowman. Noticing the twitch, Clint let’s one corner of his mouth curve up a little and lift’s one shoulder in a shrug, like he’s saying “Aw shucks, you caught me.” Vespucci dismisses Amber as if she’s nothing more than a stray speck of lint. Asshole. Clint pretends to be embarrassed and flattered, while he’s thinking about how different Phil is. Vespucci obviously considers the submissive club members to be beneath him, less than himself. He’s paying a ton of flattering attention to Clint right now, but the shine in his black eyes is not kind.

“I haven’t seen you around here before,” purrs the businessman, leading Clint to a corner where there are two chairs. Clint dislikes the tactical disadvantage it’s going to put him at, but he’s already read Vespucci like a book….a really simple, easy reader book…and can tell the dick is going to eat up every cliché subby move Clint makes, because he’s going to consider it his due. So her lowers himself to his knees on the floor and sits back on his heels, his hands palm-up on his lap. Vespucci chuckles.

“Oh, I do like that,” he says darkly. “You’ve had some training then?”

This is a question, and Clint’s studied well. He hadn’t responded to Vespucci’s comment that he hadn’t seen him here before. Most people would have, but it hadn’t been a question.

“Yes, Sir,” he whispers softly. “A little. Some of it I just read about on the internet.”

“Who trained you?”

“Oh…nobody you’ve heard of, I’m sure. There was a Dom in New York, his name was Greg.”

“What happened?” presses Vespucci. He’s being offensive, and doesn’t seem to know it, or else just doesn’t care. You don’t ask a stranger these kind of questions about his personal life.

“Oh. Uh….nothing bad really. He was nice. I guess he was just….maybe….too nice?” Clint stammers, flustered and even more embarrassed. Vespucci smiles, a hard shine of teeth that reminds Clint of a shark.

“You like it rough then, pretty bird?” he growls.

“I….yes. Sir,” sighs Clint, hanging his head. “After a little warmup, I do.”

“Hard limits?” presses Vespucci, acting like a scene is a foregone conclusion. Since it is, Clint goes along with it, leaning forward a little, eager. What he’s thinking is, “Asshat.”

“Oh…needles, um, bathroom stuff….permanent marks…I um, can’t have them….at my job?” He looks up at Vespucci, a tiny glance, not enough to be out of line, just like he’s making sure Vespucci really does know who Clint really is.

“Of course not,” murmurs the bigger man, smirking. “Nothing to mess up your arms….or hands, either, hm?”

“Oh…right. No. “

“I think it’s time to put you through your paces, pretty bird. See how you sing,” says Vespucci, rising from his chair and pulling Clint abruptly to his feet. He pretends to stumble, leans on Vespucci for support. He has to concentrate on not rolling his eyes. Dude hasn’t even asked what he likes and doesn’t like. Not that it matters. What he likes is sitting on the couch in the center of the room, watching them.

Vespucci pushes him over to the unoccupied cross in the corner. He starts to get out his own set of cuffs. Clint touches him lightly on the arm, bows his head and waits. Vespucci sighs a little impatiently but gives him permission to speak. Dick.

“Please Sir, I had these made special. They won’t, um, put pressure on the ligaments and stuff in my wrists. If that’s okay.”

“Ah yes. Your….’job’….very well.”

He hopes that once they’ve kept the cuffs on here and Vespucci has seen that Clint can’t pull out of them, he will forget to do anything about them later. Vespucci orders him to strip, which he does. He’s practiced, because it’s not really easy to take off a bondage harness and leather pants gracefully. Hawkeye, however, can do pretty much anything with his own body gracefully when he wants to. Rubber bands instead of connective tissue. He toes off his shoes and socks first, then does a ridiculously hard contortionist maneuver that sort of slides the harness up over his shoulders and arms and off his head. He does it slow, not getting in any hurry, letting Vespucci enjoy the view. Vespucci, he notices, spends a lot of time staring at his scars.

“Work or play?” he murmurs huskily, touching his fingertip to one of the scars on Clint’s back.

“Work,” confesses the archer reluctantly. “None of these are the fun kind.” He does his best to sound wistful, hungry. He manages by thinking about wishing he was doing this with Phil right now.

“Too bad,” muses the Italian. “Perhaps we can make sure to give you some of the fun kind.”

Clint makes a sound he really hopes sounds like a whimper, rather than a gagging noise. He’s pretty sure he succeeds. He thumbs the button of his pants, keeps his head bowed but watches Vespucci’s face from under his eyelashes, his mouth open, breathing a little hard, letting the other man see Clint staring at him, see how slow Clint slides down his zipper, teasing, rocking his hips forward just a little to the beat of the music. At least it’s something he likes. Rob Zombie is perfect for this. He uses his thumbs to ease his pants over his hips, rotating them just a little. Vespucci’s not taking his eyes off, watching Clint like he’s lunch. He’s getting a little impatient, so Clint slides his boxer briefs down with the leather pants, deciding to go for the full monte. It isn’t like he’s body conscious in any way. Well, except the he’s conscious he has a really good one. When he’s naked, he ducks his head even more, as if now he’s a little uncomfortable. He’s not hard, and he hopes it gets chalked up to being nervous in front of all these people. He’s not sure what he’s going to do when they’re alone, because he’s not remotely attracted to this man. Vespucci is rude, condescending, and boorish. He’s treating Clint like a piece of meat. He’s been a piece of meat too many times in his life. Now he’s gotten used to being a lot more.  Vespucci shoves him a little roughly against the cross, face first, and Clint lets himself gasp, squirm a little. He feels his hands lifted up, hears the click as quick-release snaps fasten the cuffs to the cross. The way it’s situated, he’s sort of at an angle to the room, and if he looks out of the corner of his eye, he can see Phil and Tasha, who are pretending to talk and look around, taking in everything, but who are actually mostly paying attention to him. He knows they can hear everything said between himself and Vespucci. They’re wearing tiny earbuds, because nobody’s going to be close enough to either of them to see it.

Vespucci turns away to set his toy bag up on a chair near the cross, unzipping it to take various implements out. Clint, momentarily out of the other man’s earshot as long as he’s quiet, tilts his dead down and whispers,

“Moron.”

He’s watching out of the corner of his eye when he says it, and sees Tasha lay her head on her “Master’s” shoulder, turning her face against the leather of his vest. Her shoulders shake, once. Phil tugs sharply on her leash and whispers something harshly at her, but the corner of his mouth quirks.

Scening with Dante Vespucci is a little like what he imagines a slab of meat on a hook feels. There’s no hand on his shoulder, no communication, no stopping to make sure Clint’s hands are okay. Vespucci’s good with a flogger at least. He’s accurate, flashy, and he puts his back into it. Clint groans appreciatively. He hasn’t had a real massage in a while. The flogger is heavy, expensive, made of elk hide, which is a thick, spongy leather. It packs a lot of thud, but no sting at all to speak of. His back is warm, and it’s doing wonders for the knot he felt forming under his right shoulder blade a couple of days ago. He remembers to groan appreciatively from time to time. He keeps his eyes almost closed, so no one watching can see where he’s looking, and he stays focused on them. He’s going to have to do something to get his body with the program, because he has a feeling Vespucci’s not going to be pleased if Clint’s not sporting a nice boner when he’s done working him over. Unnoticed by anyone else in the room, he watches Phil and Tasha while they pretend not to watch him either. He ignores the asshole behind him and lets his mind slip into thoughts of things that he hopes will get him where he wants to be. He remembers the night Tasha had surprised him in the private dungeon. Remembers how it had felt, Tasha’s mouth on his dick, warm and wet and with exactly the right amount of suction and little bit of teeth. Recalls to his mind the way Phil’s steady, strong whipping had felt on his skin, little nips and sparks of heat, counterpoint to Tasha’s sweet mouth. Yeah, that was pretty much awesome. It helps, but it isn’t exactly what he needs. It’s not the memories that get him going, hot and needy and frantic. It’s the threats. The filth that is so shocking coming out of Phil’s mouth, such a direct contradiction to his mild manner and classy clothes. The anticipation of it, wondering if Phil will follow through, knowing he’s perfectly capable of it, because often he _does_ but sometimes it’s only a tease, to make Clint want. Oh, he does. He thinks of today, Phil’s voice rough with frustration and love, telling him he’d give him a lesson in who he belongs to once this is done. It had gone on from there, too. He closes his eyes, and though the moan isn’t for Vespucci, the dick appreciates it, chuckling darkly and flogging Clint harder. Clint doesn’t care, he’s not even here anymore. He’s pressed against Phil’s chest, his lover’s hand in his hair, holding his head still while his voice trickles dark and sweet and filthy in Clint’s ear…..Going to show you who owns you, boy….Bend you over, tie you down…you won’t be able to move, Clint, won’t be able to get away…..Mine, all mine, and you’ll suffer for me….As much as I want, as long as I want….You like it when I use my belt, don’t you, baby boy?....Yeah, I know you do….Make you beg me to stop, but I won’t Clint, not for s long time….not til I’ve _wrecked_ you….Strap you raw, all over your perfect little ass, your legs…..Clint…. _Clint_ ….what do you think it will feel like when I use the belt on your tender little hole?....Oh that’s going to burn….Make it all red and sore….Then it’ll burn when I fuck you, baby. So much….I’ll listen to you cry and scream and beg….And do you know what I’ll do?....I’ll fuck you harder…..

Christ. Before he knows it, he’s rutting against the smooth wood of the cross, panting and whimpering, and yeah, that’s where he needs to be. It makes Vespucci crazy, and Clint pays no attention at all to what the man is saying when he unfastens him from the cross. Oh it’s not that he doesn’t hear him, he hears him fine. It’s just that it’s Phil’s voice in his head he’s responding to when the Italian calls him an eager little slut and demands that he come home with him so Vespucci can show him how to really fly. He calls him pretty bird, and Clint whispers, “yes Sir” and Vespucci kisses him. Thanking Phil for always having his back, Clint pulls himself abruptly out of that fantasy, because he’s not confusing Phil and this loser in his mind. He’s just not. He presses his groin into Vespucci’s hip and grids it against him, and he kisses him back, making it as good as he knows how, and that’s pretty fucking good. He moans into the man’s mouth, nips and brushes their lips together softly, laps at his mouth with little darting strokes of his own tongue, then plunges it into the other man’s mouth, making eager noises and sucking on his tongue, scraping just a little with his teeth. He works the kiss like he works a case, utterly focused and intent on his work. It’s not a man, not an expression of lust, it’s a job, and Clint’s great at his job. Vespucci is a little unsteady on his feet when he leads Clint from the club. Clint tugs a bit against his wrist when he’d pulled towards Vespucci’s car, which is a Maserati and Clint wouldn’t mind taking it for a spin.

“Sir please,” he gasps, breathless (as if).

“What is it, little bird?”

“It’s….my car….Sir. I gotta be at work tomorrow….at five.”

“I’ll have my driver bring you back in the morning,” Vespucci says dismissively. “And when we get home, I’m going to have to punish you for speaking out of turn.”

Clint follows him meekly, making more whimpering noises behind Vespucci’s back. Unseen by the loser pulling him along by the wrist, he crosses his eyes and sticks out his tongue, making faces. It’s probably a good thing Vespucci doesn’t look back.

Vespucci’s home is another study in cliché’s. It’s enormous, made of sandstone with a tiled roof that is probably supposed to be reminiscent of Italy. There’s a fountain in the circular front drive with dozens of naked cherubs and some fish and what he’s pretty sure is supposed to be a mermaid in the center. They all have water coming out of various orifices, which is kind of alarming. There’s an armed guard at the front gate. Not like, with a rifle and uniform or anything, but armed muscle is armed muscle, no matter what it’s wearing. At the front door, an honest to god butler greets them, and Vespucci spends a few minutes going over something about a dinner thing tomorrow, and then dismisses the man for the night, asking him to dismiss the rest of the staff too. He turns to Clint with a wolfish smile.

“I want to have you all to myself tonight, pretty bird,” he says with an unpleasant smile. “I intend to make you sing.”

“I….I’m not sure I’m much of a singer, sir,” he says a little uncertainly. Vespucci laughs. It grates on Clint’s nerves.

“Hawks usually aren’t,” he sneers, and begins to pull Clint along the marble halls. Honest to god marble. It’s kind of a pinkish color, with gold flecks. It looks a little bit like somebody threw up after a huge bender. Clint makes protesting noises, stammers that his name is Bobby Bowman, to which Vespucci responds with a harsh laugh. “I think we both know who you are, pretty,” he says with a pleased smile.

Clint allows himself to be led to Vespucci’s bedroom. The room is all reds and golds, which isn’t bad, not like the hallways anyway, though there certainly is a LOT of it. He undresses at Vespucci’s order and allows himself to be cuffed to the enormous, heavy gilt wood canopy of the bed. He tugs experimentally, and the businessman laughs, assuring him that he had the bed built for just this purpose. He’s getting another bag out now, and this one isn’t so innocuous as the one he’d had at the club. Clint feels a small, visceral stab of fear when he sees the heavy coiled whip. It’s six feet at least, and not tipped with a nylon cracker like most. Its tip is braided leather all the way to the end, then hardened by some sealant that’s a little shinier than the rest of the leather. It’s not made to crack and to snap and sting, it’s made to bruise and tear. A braided cat whip with knotted falls, a rattan cane as big around as his thumb, a gleaming knife, a gag…Fuck this, he’s not letting this bastard mark up Phil’s property that way. He squirms and wriggles in his bonds, making urgent pleading noises. Vespucci finally looks up from his preparations and smiles unpleasantly at Clint.

“Are you frightened, pretty little hawk?” he purrs.

“Ohhh no, Sir,” breathes  Clint. “I can hardly wait. That’s…. _fuck_ ….that all looks just _awesome_ ….” He bites his lip, hoping it looks eager and sexy, because he’s trying really hard not to laugh. “I just….would you….please can I ask if you’d…”

“Spit it out,” snaps Vespucci impatiently.

“Would you please kiss me again Sir, one time, before we start?”

Vespucci’s smile is more a baring of his teeth.

“It’s been a long time since I had one so eager,” he murmurs, practically rubbing his hands together with glee. “Very well.” And he comes over to Clint, leaning in close. Clint’s thumbs press the release rivets on his cuffs silently. He leans into the kiss, moaning. Vespucci’s not a gentleman about it this time. He grips Clint’s jaw and presses his fingers in hard, trying to bruise, and his tongue forces Clint’s mouth open wide, forcing its way in, almost cutting off his air. The second Vespucci draws back for a second to catch his breath, Clint’s hands grab him by the face and he snarls at the shocked look on the Italian’s face.

“Suck this, asshole,” he hisses, crushing the cap on his molar and blowing the little puff of knockout gas in Vespucci’s face. He breathes out fully. JARVIS’s instructions to Natasha had cautioned that the bearer of the gas needed to be very sure to expel all the gas before inhaling again or they might get a whiff of it themselves. Vespucci claws at Clint’s hands, already going under. He can’t seem to make his arms work right. Clint watches his eyes slowly roll back into his skull, then lets him slump unconscious to the floor.

“Asshole,” he mutters, stepping over the unconscious form. He dresses quickly and then begins a systematic search of the property. It takes longer than he likes, because while he knows from scans where the blank spot in the house is, he can’t for the life of him find a control panel or hidden door anywhere. He has breathed softly (into his nipple ring, which ok, just makes him want to fucking fall out laughing every time he thinks about it) that Vespucci is out and he’s on recon, then he maintains radio silence because he isn’t sure whether the staff the businessman dismissed have homes they’ve gone to or they live here. He also doesn’t know how many other bodyguards the man may have. He’s not worried about the guy at the gate. Phil and Tasha will take care of that once he’s found what he’s looking for. He hasn’t heard anyone else in the house, but that doesn’t mean they’re not here. He’s getting more and more frustrated, because even though he knows where the dark room is, he can’t fucking find it. He’s been circling around this square section of joined halls for what seems like an hour. He’s almost to the point of just prowling in a big square around the same walls like a bored tiger, trailing his fingers along a tile fresco that’s inlaid in them, because sometimes having something to touch helps him think. He’s a very tactile person, which has pretty much served him well as both a sniper and as a lover. He loves the way stuff feels. A quivering bow string, the bristle of fletching, brick and steel and stone and the flex of his arms while he climbs, the wind on his face and in his hair while he’s up high. The softness of Tasha’s skin on the insides of her thighs when he slides his hands up, presses them apart. The loose, weighty feel of Phil’s balls in his hands, the slide of skin under his lips and tongue and teeth when he sucks Phil’s cock down deep…the….

Hang on.

He backs up a step, rubbing his fingertips over the tiles again. Yeah, there, that one there, the blue one. It’s different. It sticks up just a little higher than the rest of the tiles. Hot damn. Porny thoughts actually save the day. He takes a breath and presses the raised tile. There is a click, and the wall, which had appeared seamless, slides forward about two inches, a section about 3 feet wide. He looks around to make sure no one’s approaching, then slips in. Before he closes the door, he looks around to make sure the catch on this side isn’t hidden. It’s not. It’s a handle on this side. Good. There are stairs going down into darkness. He eases his way down silently, but there are no guards here. Just a door at the bottom, and under it, he can see the faint glow of dim lighting. He listens, not breathing, ear pressed to the door, for several minutes. He hears something on the other side all right, but he doesn’t think it’s hostiles.  He shifts the knife he’d taken from Vespucci’s toys so it’s ready in his hand, to throw or slice, and opens the door. What he sees on the other side makes his vision go dark with rage for a second. There are cages in the room. Three of them. Big enough for a person, but not to stand up in. Two are occupied. Two pairs of wide, glassy, terrified eyes stare at him as he enters the room. A young girl and boy, probably not even legal. Their bodies still have a little of the softness, the gangly look of childhood. Maybe eighteen, but he doubts it. They’re naked, and their bodies are almost entirely covered with bruises, welts, and scabs. Some are mostly healed. Some look like they may have happened earlier tonight. It’s not so much the panic he sees in those eyes that really gets him, it’s the hopelessness.  He looks around the room. There’s nothing here to cover them with, and he’s not equipped to get them out, not by himself. He’s pretty sure his transmitter isn’t going to work down here. He doesn’t know what the black coating on the walls, floor and ceiling of this place is, but it’s weird. It isn’t just black, it almost seems to absorb light, to be made of shadows. He holds both his hands where the kids can see them and approaches slowly. They press their damaged bodies up against the back of their cages.

“Shh,” he murmurs softly. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to help you. My name is Clint, and I work for some people who want to stop the man who did this to you. In just a few more minutes, people are going to come and break down those bars and get you out, and help you, and take you home. Do you understand me?”

The boy nods, but the girl doesn’t respond, too trapped inside her own trauma to understand. Clint looks at the boy.

“What’s your name, son?” he asks gently.

“Ethan,” whispers the boy in a hoarse little voice.

“Okay Ethan, can you try to let your friend know that we’re going to help? I have to go back upstairs now, to let the people in who are going to help you. Can you try to explain that to her while I’m gone?”

“You’re leaving?” asks the kid, voice shrill with panic.

“It’s okay, not for long, I had to get in here by myself to find where you guys were hidden. I don’t have any tools with me to open those cages, or any clothes for you, or a first aid kit or anything. Help is on its way, I promise.”

“Oh….okay,” says the boy, nodding.

“Great, you’re doing great, just hang in there a few minutes,okay?”

The kid nods again, and Clint turns and hurries up the stairs. He makes for the front door, whispering as he does so.

“Subjects located, west wing, central square as anticipated. Loose tile. I’ve left the door open. Neutralize the gate, I’m coming…Fuck…”

The sharp pain in his neck as he rounds the final corner, headed for the front door makes him clap his hand over the spot. There’s a tiny dart embedded in his throat, its fuzzy feathered tail ticking the palm of his hand His vision blurs almost immediately, and all of a sudden the floor is coming up really fast.

“Fuck,” he slurs again, trying to keep his thoughts clear. “……dart…..m’sorry Sir….sl….sloppy….”

Hands jerk him to his feet and a voice hisses in his ear.

“Oh look, a little bird trying to flee its cage. You’ve been very naughty, pretty bird. Now I shall have to punish you.”

His only hope as darkness swells up to drown him is that Phil can hear that too. They’ll come. They always do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features descriptions of very bad BDSM practices. Actual people who aren't A) superheroes or B) undercover agents or C) stupid should NEVER enter into a scene with someone they don't know without an honest discussion of both their hard and soft limits (hard limits being things they WILL not do and soft limits being things they don't LIKE to do without a very good reason), health problems the other person needs to be aware of, use of safewords, emotional triggers to be watched out for, and a simple exchange of likes, dislikes, and expectations. 
> 
> Part of the reason the stories in this fic ring true is that I have personally DONE all of them in one way or another, but always with a partner I know, trust, love, and communicate with openly and honestly. There's nothing wrong with wanting what you want, so long as no one is harmed by it, and it is consensual (children and animals are not able to give consent, so no, I'm not condoning those practices). It doesn't make you a freak (unless you like the moniker, as I happen to) or sick or wrong. Be who you are. But do it responsibly and don't let anybody EVER put you in a situation like the one described in this chapter!


	7. Part Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first part of this chapter is grim. It contains a non-consensual scene that is all about torture and has nothing to do with the BDSM lifestyle. It depicts a disturbed and evil man trying to break our amazingly awesome hotter than hell Hawkeye. There is nothing sexy or pretty about it. If this sort of thing disturbs you, please scroll down until the horror is over!
> 
> The rest of this chapter is about faith and love and healing, and is silly and a little smutty and poor Clint trying to deal with not being able to do ANYthing for several days while his body recovers. Not anything. At all. Phil and Tasha are sooo mean.
> 
> Also the next part is going to be NOTHING. BUT. FILTH.

Awareness returns slowly. Hearing is first. Soft chink of metal, creak of leather. Harsh breathing (his own, he thinks) and the sounds of someone crying softly and trying not to. Sensation next. Mouth feels cottony, tongue swollen. His arms hurt, and his hands are asleep. Feet dangling. Shit. He’s suspended by his wrists, big heavy restraints buckled tight, fingers numb. Chilly. He’s naked. Not good. He can see now, sort of. It’s not very bright. Surrounded by black. Chain above him, bolted to the ceiling. The cages…two kids in them….what was the boy’s name? Yeah, Ethan. Looking at him, hopeless, scared, angry. Girl…it’s her crying. Why not? He’s their savior, and now he needs saving too. He’s in the hidey hole. Doesn’t see or hear Vespucci right this moment, so he risks speaking.

“Ethan,” he whispers. No response at first, so he tries a little louder. His voice doesn’t come easy, the tranq has left him with a serious case of dry mouth. “Ethan!”

“What?” hisses the kid finally.

“How long have I been…?”

“I don’t know, not too long. Maybe fifteen minutes? It…it gets hard to tell, after you’ve been down here a while.”

“Okay, that’s fine. Listen, I wasn’t lying about my backup. Help will come. They may have to search around a little for the door to this place, but they’ll find it.”

“How?” whispers the boy in an empty voice. “The….the man told us, bragged about it, that this room has some kind of special paint or something and it doesn’t show up in infrared or any other kind of sensor sweep. They won’t be able to find it.”

“It may seem that way, but they’ll come. Believe it. Now…what’s your ability, kid? Why’d they take you?”

“I don’t…”

“Save it,” he says, cutting the kid off. “He could come back at any second. We know they’re taking people with abilities. What are yours, and the girl’s? She got a name?”

“Kara,” says the boy. “We can’t do much. That’s why they didn’t send us to the lab with the rest. I can always tell what direction I’m facing, like which way’s North and stuff. I never get lost. Big deal, huh?”

“Well, right now it might help a little. Which way’s the front door?”

Ethan points, and Clint squirms until he’s facing that way, because it puts the polish on his fingers and the transmitter facing in the direction they’ll be coming from. Probably.

“Okay, what about Kara?”

“What difference does it make?” sniffles the girl bleakly, speaking for the first time. “Nobody’s gonna save us. He’ll kill us one day, when he gets bored. He killed Ju…the other girl who was here before me.”

“Help IS coming,” says Hawkeye fiercely. He doesn’t tell the kids he’s hoping desperately Vespucci wants him alive, because he’s pretty sure it’s going to take them a little time to find the door. They don’t know its exact location, since he’s assuming once the sick fuck joins him down here, he’s going to close the door.

“Great,” says the girl dully. “When they get here, I can light their cigarettes for them. I’ve got exactly enough pyrokinesis to light a match.”

“Can you do it from a distance?” he asks, but she shakes her head. Damn.

The door opens at the top of the stairs. He hears it, a soft click, followed by footsteps coming down the stairs. Then the door to the room they’re in swings slowly out, and Vespucci steps in, closing it behind him. He’s got his case in his hand, the one he’d been pulling stuff out of when Clint had decided to make his departure.

“Hello, pretty bird,” he purrs.

“Hello, asshole,” says Clint with a brilliant smile.

“Ohhh, I’m going to enjoy teaching you some respect. When I’m done, you’ll be begging me to send you to the lab, let them take apart what makes you Hawkeye, because by the time I’m done, you’ll wish you weren’t. We’re going to have such FUN.”

“Great. Can’t wait,” he says with a smirk. Actually, Vespucci doesn’t know it but he HAS just made Clint’s night. He’s not going to kill him, wants him alive.

Vespucci makes a tsk noise with his tongue.

“Foolish little bird,” he muses, beginning to set out his toys. “If only you’d been a good boy. I was going to make you sing and let you go. Too recognizable for our purposes, too strong to hold for very long without a lot of trouble, too many powerful friends. When I saw you tonight and realized who you were, I can’t even describe how thrilled I was. We’re doing the most exciting work, you know. Learning how abilities work, what makes them tick. We’re on the verge of distilling pure power into a serum that’s going to make Captain America look like an unfortunate mistake. When I saw the beautiful, deadly Hawkeye walk in tonight, I admit I did think what a lovely addition you’d make to our collection, what you’d add to our research. Then I had to admit to myself that this would be a poor idea. But I had to have you at least once, when I realized you were submissive and a lovely little painslut. I just couldn’t resist. But you had to go and spoil it, being a bad boy. Now I’m afraid I’ll have to break you, and by then you won’t be any use to anyone anymore as a toy, so my researchers may as well get some scientific use out of you. Sadly, they’ll have to be quick, which I’m sure will disappoint them, but we can’t really afford to keep you.”

Clint’s astonishment grows as the psycho rambles. Can it be that this fucker still hasn’t realized Clint’s under cover? The more Vespucci rambles as he lays implements out on a small table, the more certain he grows that this is true. For some reason the fact that he’s not in the costume and he’s using a false name and a disguise this bad has made Vespucci certain that tonight wasn’t a mission, just a happy coincidence. That's just fine. Awesome, in fact. Now all he’s got to do it hang on until the cavalry arrives. He doesn’t interrupt the Italian as he prattles on, arranging things to his liking. Every second the guy spends talking and nitpicking over his toys is a second he’s not torturing Clint. Which is fine.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t last much longer. Vespucci goes for the cane first. He spends a few minutes making sharp little taps up and down the backs of Clint’s legs with it, which sting but don’t really hurt, building the suspense. It’s starting to really get on Clint’s nerves, but he’s not stupid enough to tell Vespucci to just get on with it already. That’ll come soon enough.

It does. Oh, it does. The first cut slashes across the backs of his thighs. It’s the same initial feeling as when Phil caned him, the first second where he hears the whistle of it as it descends, his body registers the impact and he hears the crack of it on his skin, then a pause. Then sensation sets in, white hot pain that feels like a knife’s been drawn across his skin, a pain that, incredibly, grows and grows for several seconds before it subsides into throbbing. Vespucci slashes at his legs and ass with the cane. Clint grits his teeth and throws his head back, eyes screwed shut, choking on screams. He doesn’t want to upset the kids worse than they already are. But oh Jesus, oh fucking hell, it hurts so goddamn bad. This time when he feels something roll down his leg, he knows it’s blood. No way is Vespucci crying over hurting him this much. His skin where the cane strikes feels like he’s been boiled until it peels off. When it slashes across his calves, he can’t hold in the hissing curses, wants so badly to scream.

“FUCK,” he swears.

“Stings a bit?” asks Vespucci gaily. He’s paused in the beating to ask, and Clint sucks in a deep breath.

“I’ve had worse,” he says through gritted teeth. This is probably not a wise thing to say, but smart-assery has always been Clint’s defense mechanism, and he doesn’t plan on it failing him now. Vespucci takes it as a challenge though, and really puts his back into it. Clint’s panting heavily and groaning through his clenched teeth when it finally stops.

“Beg me for mercy,” hisses Vespucci maliciously. Clint laughs through his harsh gasps for breath.

“Yeah, that’s gonna happen.”

“Oh it will, pretty hawk. I’m just getting started. You’ll beg before I’m done. You’ll promise me anything I want, just to make it stop. You’ll beg for my cock, beg to be allowed to suck me off, beg me to fuck you, you’ll crawl on the floor and kiss my boots while you do it, too.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” says Clint. Then he smiles. Vespucci doesn’t like this at all, not one bit. He puts the cane down and picks up the cat. Pain blossoms across Clint’s shoulders. He drops his head forward to try to keep his neck out of the way, because Vespucci’s not trying to be careful, and he snarls and curses at him. The knots are spaced unevenly all over the falls of the whip, and they bite into his skin like hornets. With his head tipped forwards like this, he can see a few drops of his own blood on the floor beneath his feet. He stares at the glistening crimson, and he thinks about Tasha, about Phil. They’re coming, he thinks to himself. They will not leave me here. They’re coming. He holds on to this thought, and his faith is unshakable. He does, however, sort of wish they’d hurry it up a little. He’s sweating and shaking after a dozen strokes. The thing is monstrous when it wraps around his thighs. He tries to keep them clenched together, but that only works for a little bit. Suspended as he is, keeping too many muscles clenched like this makes them start to cramp. When he lets go, the wretched little knots curl inwards, and one of them snakes in and catches his balls. The pain is obscene, nauseating. He can’t help it. He shrieks.

After that, it gets bad.

Clint’s entire world becomes a sickening sea of pain. He’s shivering, his body feels greasy with the cold sweat of shock, but he struggles to stay clear headed, mostly succeeds. He can’t afford to try to separate from it, to find someplace safe in his head to hide, because he knows, more surely than he knows his own name and that he is an archer, he knows they’ll come, and he needs to be ready. But oh GOD it hurts so fucking much. Distantly, he’s aware it’s probably really not as bad as the cigar burns were, but shit, it’s only the pain you’re in NOW that matters. It blots out everything else he has ever known. There isn’t anything but the sickening bite of hardened knots into his flesh.

It stops, and Clint opens his eyes to see that Vespucci is rubbing the knots between his fingers, Clint’s blood smearing them. Like a cat licking cream, Vespucci looks him in the eye and licks the blood from his fingertips.

“That’s….not….very sanitary,” gasps Clint.

Vespucci smiles unpleasantly.

“You taste sweet, pretty hawk. You’re whistling in the dark now. That’s all right. I know you’re scared, know it’s hurting you. Oh, so much. You’ll beg, Hawkeye. They all beg. Why fight it?”

“Fuck….you…”

Vespucci sighs.

“Ah well. It’s not like I’d stop before I got to play with my very favorite toy anyway,” says the asshole happily. He picks up the whip. It uncoils, slithers to the floor. Vespucci strokes the sinuous leather across Clint’s sweating, burning, torn flesh. He can’t help it. He whimpers. Vespucci’s eyes go dark with desire.

The whip hisses across the floor as it’s drawn back. It strikes too fast for Clint to register that the blow is coming. The lash bites across his back and curls around his ribs. There’s an ugly splatting sound when it lands. He shouts in agony, his whole body tense, shuddering, horrified. His brain shorts out for a few seconds, unable to begin to process how much it hurts. Then it comes again, hissing and biting deep, opening up a slash across his shoulders. He feels the blood slide down his spine. It’s so enormous it makes him want to vomit.

“Master,” he whimpers. “Please!”

Vespucci makes a sound of satisfaction in his chest.

“Oh, I do like that,” he purrs, leaning in to swipe his tongue across Clint’s lower back. It feels disgusting. “But you’re going to have to do a little better than that. Do keep calling me Master though, I quite approve.”

“Asshat,” gasps Clint.

Vespucci’s face darkens with rage. He steps in front of Clint and backhands him across the face. Clint’s feet are only a couple of inches off the floor, so Vespucci’s still a couple of inches taller than he is. Clint spits blood out of his mouth and stares unblinkingly at the other man, contempt in his eyes.

“Wannabe. Loser. Dick,” he laughs hoarsely, getting another blow for his trouble. That’s okay, it hurts less than the whip.

“You’ll keep a civil tongue in your head, pretty,” snarls Vespucci. “And you’ll call me Master again.”

“Wasn’t….talking….to you,” Clint pants, his mouth full of blood.

“Oooooh,” says Vespucci, a smile splitting his face like an ugly wound. “Did you slip someone’s leash tonight, naughty bird? Run away from your owner to find a real man for the night? Your master can’t be much of one, if he allows you to run around playing with strangers, dressing like a whore, stripping for another man like a dirty cockslut…”

Clint closes his eyes and smiles serenely. Vespucci’s words roll off like rain on a newly-waxed surface. The man snarls and spins Clint around, drawing his arm back again. He wields the whip in a frenzy now, screaming at the archer to beg for mercy, to call him Master, to beg to be used, fucked, taken. Clint screams, he can’t help it. The pain is unbelievable. It devours him, drowning him in choking agony. But inside him, inside an armored core so strong, so sure, so certain that nothing touches it, is Clint’s faith. Vespucci hurts him, horribly. He can’t fight the pain, doesn’t even try anymore. He shrieks, he howls and sobs. But no matter how hideously Vespucci beats him, Clint’s faith stays safe. Tasha. Master. They will come. They’ll always come.

Vespucci grows increasingly enraged and frenzied as Clint simply refuses to break. Is, in fact, unable to break. You can’t break the unbreakable, and there is no whip, no knife, no cudgel, gun or any other kind of weapon that can break the archer’s belief. He wants desperately for Vespucci to stop hurting him, and his voice has become nothing more than a hoarse whisper of agony, but he is no less sure of what he knows to be true than he was before it began. Dimly, he hears Kara sobbing, screaming at him to do it, give Vespucci what he wants, tell him what he wants to hear, to make it stop. Poor kid, he thinks dazedly. Wishes he could share a little of his faith with her. Can’t worry about that now. God, it hurts. Oh it hurts so much. Wish it would stop. Do almost anything. Suck him off, sure. That’s nothing. If he’d stop, Clint’ll do that. Call him Master though, no. Not that. Never that. Die first. Phil’s the only one he’ll call Master. Shit. Mind’s wandering. Shock probably. Blood loss? He looks down, sees the floor stained red. Yeah maybe. Wow it’s red. Shiny. Kind of tickles when it trickles down his legs. Wish I could scratch behind my knee, really itches. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. Stop, please stop. Can’t say it. Shit. Focus, Hawkeye. Losing it. Wow, arms really hurt. Hope I’ll still be able to shoot. How long’s it been? Hours?

His head slumps forwards a little. It’s hard to see very well, hard to keep his eyes open. He’s so tired. Just wants to rest a little while. Vespucci won’t mind. He’s too caught up in the whip, in the crap he’s yelling at Clint. Can’t really hear him anymore. Just noise. God, I want to rest, he thinks. Close my eyes for a just a minute. His lids slide down, the dark is seductive, beckoning.

There’s an enormous crash from overhead. Clint’s eyes fly open. Vespucci’s startled, and his stroke misses. He drops the whip, turns. Clint squints at him. What’s he doing? Looking for something on that table. His back’s turned. God, Clint’s whole body hurts so bad it’s like digging a nail into a rotten tooth to make himself move, make his shaking muscles respond. It’s a gun, that’s what Vespucci’s going for. Oh no you don’t, Clint mumbles, even though no sound comes out. Gritting his teeth, he wills his body to respond. It’s Phil. It’s Tasha. Vespucci will shoot them when they come through the door. He hears pounding, footsteps on stairs. Shit. Fuck. Goddamn it, Hawkeye, move your ass.

His hands, numb and swollen, grip the chain he’s suspended from painfully. Vespucci’s chambering a round. Glock 17, Clint thinks detachedly. He pulls, lifts his legs, uses his body’s weight to swing himself forwards a little. Just a little bit. Just enough to reach. It seems to take him years, though it’s only seconds. His legs wrap around Vespucci’s upper body. He won’t be able to hold on long. His skin’s slippery with sweat and blood, and he’s weak, and it hurts like bloody buggering hell (there’s that phrase again, cool) to move at all, let alone hold on. But Vespucci’s not expecting it, and he shouts in alarm, fumbling with the gun a little. He gets it back under control, lifts it, bending just his elbows because Clint’s legs are around his upper arms, points the barrel up towards Clint.

He’s too late though. The door is torn open. Two extremely pissed off people burst into the room, one high, one low, Sig Sauers acquiring their target almost instantly.

“Drop it,” snarls Phil. His eyes are black pools of rage. Vespucci’s finger tightens on the trigger.

“Please give me an excuse,” says Tasha. Her face is utterly devoid of expression. This is the face she wears when she kills people. Vespucci sees his death in her eyes, and drops the gun. It clatters on the floor. Clint’s legs slip loose and dangle again, making him grunt in pain as it tugs on his arms. Other SHIELD agents pour into the room behind Phil and Natasha, securing Vespucci, going to the cages, working on the locks. Kara is crying harder now. Ethan’s babbling over and over, saying thank you and get me out and please. Clint sighs, rests his head on his arm.

Phil is there, his arms around Clint, lifting a little, taking his weight off his arms. Someone unfastens the cuffs from the chain.

“Knew you’d come,” mumbles Clint.

“Always,” Phil says softly, his eyes bright with tears. “I am so sorry it took so long, Clint.”

“’Sokay,” the archer sighs. Then in sudden alarm, he lifts his head up from where he’s let it fall on Phil’s shoulder. “I’m getting….blood on your clothes….” He protests weakly, horrified at the thought of ruining the amazing outfit the older agent is wearing.

“Clint,” says Tasha, a thread of humor in her voice despite the rage he can still hear there, “fuck the clothes. He probably has more.”

“No,” he protests, struggling weakly. “He looks so pretty. Phil, you look so pretty. Don’t wanna bleed on you.”

Phil rolls his eyes and sits in a chair one of the agents has brought him, taking Clint with him, into his lap. Tasha wraps a blanket around the archer’s shivering body just as his teeth start to chatter. The two children are helped from their cages, wrapped in blankets, and taken out of the room. Agents bend down to reach for Vespucci, where he lies facedown on the floor, hands cuffed behind his back, yelling obscenities and threats in English and Italian.

“Leave him,” says Phil shortly. “Clear the room, begin a sweep of the rest of the property. We’ll join you shortly and I’ll expect a progress report.”

“Yes Sir,” says the senior of the two agents, and they slip quietly from the room.

Vespucci keeps yelling. Tasha, who is touching the parts of Clint that don’t have cuts or welts or bruises and are not covered by the blanket  (mostly this means his upper chest and throat, his hair), turns her head to stare coldly at the hollering idiot on the floor, who has, if Clint’s foggy brain isn’t mistaken, just called her a mewling quim in Italian. Oh boy. Somebody’s called her that before.

“Not smart,” he mumbles.

Tasha stoops, jerks Vespucci’s head back by the hair. He cries out in pain.

“Looks like you can dish it out but you can’t take it,” she says pleasantly. “I’m going to give you a free piece of advice, and if you’re smart, you’ll take it. There is nobody left in this room who gives two shits about whether you continue to breathe or not. We’re going to have a little sit-down and decide whether or not you’re going to be shot while escaping in a few minutes, and I know which way I’m going to vote. You’re going to want to be quiet now, and try not to annoy me further.”

When he sees the look in her eyes, deadly calm and sincere, Vespucci subsides and lays there on the floor, curled in on himself a little, and does not say another word. His eyes track Tasha’s movements nervously, though there is still hate there too.

Phil holds Clint, his hand on the back of the archer’s head, oblivious to blood and sweat and tears and the fact that Clint’s nose is running, pressing him close and murmuring softly to him. He tells Clint how wonderful, how perfect and good and brave he is. He whispers that Clint is beautiful and amazing and how proud he is. He pets his hair gently and talks to him softly, his voice breaking a little every now and then, as Tasha cleans the cuts on Clint’s back as best she can. Clint sobs a little when antiseptic burns in the whip slashes. He can’t help it. Phil praises him and kisses everywhere on Clint’s face he can touch without hurting him. Which, apparently, includes his nose and eyelids. Clint longs to kiss Phil on his mouth, stop him from saying all these ridiculous things, it’s embarrassing, but when he tries, his lip bleeds more and he whimpers, so Phil won’t let him. Phil won’t stop either, he just keeps on telling Clint how he’s the best, most perfect and wonderful person in the entire world. Tasha’s hands are gentle and quick, and any time she finds a little patch of skin that isn’t awful, she kisses him there, which is a very weird thing for Tasha to do  in the middle of an op. Phil pulls pants out of the equipment bag that has been left sitting in a corner. They’re loose, drawstring lounge pants, made of soft cotton. It’s still horrible to put them on, but Clint doesn’t want to be naked and he REALLY doesn’t want to put the leather pants back on, which is good because Vespucci had apparently cut them off him after hanging him from the ceiling. He feels a little bit ridiculous standing there, barely able to keep on his feet without help, in Docs and a pair of what are essentially pajama pants that have penguins on them.

A female agent slips back into the room long enough to deliver a glass of orange juice and some peanut butter crackers. Phil thanks her, and she slips back out as quietly as she’d come. Phil helps him hold the glass in his shaking hands and drink a little, gently makes him eat a couple of the crackers. He knows he’s in shock, and probably needs to get to Medical, so he’s not sure why Phil and Tasha are keeping him down here, but he’s content just to be with them, so he nibbles the crackers, swaying gently on his feet, and waits.

Once he’s sure they’re completely alone, Phil turns to Clint, looking deeply into his eyes.

“I know,” mumbles Hawkeye around a mouthful of peanut butter cracker. “I’m perfect and amazing. Geez, Sir.”

Phil closes his eyes for a second, alarming Clint horribly when a tear trickles out of the corner of his eye.

“Hey, Sir, no. Hey. I’m sorry. I’m just kidding around,” he protests weakly. Phil opens his eyes again. Clint has never seen him look like this before. While unshed tears swim in his eyes, they are nevertheless also hard as flint and so cold it makes Clint shiver.

“You’re going straight to medical in a minute, but we wanted to get you back to coherent enough to decide something before that happens,” says Phil quietly. His voice is like jagged shards of ice.

“Decide? What?”

Tasha goes to stand over Vespucci’s prone body. Her gun is rock steady in her hand as she points it at his head. The Italian starts to plead with her not to kill him. She kicks him in the stomach.

“It’s your call, Clint,” she says calmly. “Phil and I both wanted to kill him the second we heard you tell us you’d been tranq’d.”

This doesn’t surprise him much, coming from Tasha. It does, however, surprise him a lot when Phil nods and agrees with her.

“Nobody does this to you and gets away with it,” says the handler coldly. “I will put a bullet in his brain myself if you want it, and gladly. Or Natasha will. Or, if you want to, if it will help you get over….what he’s done….you can do it yourself.” Phil’s voice is choked at the end, full of anger and grief.

Clint looks at them both. He gets that they’re angry. He’d be furious if someone did this to either of them too, and would cheerfully kill anybody who was hurting them to make them stop, would do anything to save them. Vespucci is harmless now though, and SHIELD needs the things he could tell him. From the way he’d reacted to having his hair pulled and Tasha kicking him, it probably wasn’t even going to be very hard to get him to talk. He looks cautiously at their stricken, grim expressions, and suddenly it becomes clear to him.

“Oh!” he says, as comprehension dawns. “Oh, you guys think he…. _ohhhh._ ”

They’re both looking at him funny, like they’re worried he’s going into hysterics or something.

“Shh,” Phil coaxes gently. “It’s okay, beautiful boy, we’ll take care of you.”

“He didn’t rape me,” Clint bursts out, to make him stop talking like that, to make them both stop looking like that. “He was having too much fun beating the shit out of me. Phil, Tasha….he didn’t rape me. He never touched me, not _that_ way!”

Phil’s shoulders slump in relief, and Tasha sighs heavily. An oppressive weight Clint hadn’t been really aware of until now lifts from the room.

“Still your call,” says Tasha, and the gun hasn’t wavered. Clint looks down at his tormentor, helpless and sniveling on the floor.

“Oh please,” he says disdainfully. “He’s not worth a bullet. Let SHIELD get what they can out of him and then leave him to rot in a cage.”

This is, apparently, okay with them now, and agents are summoned to remove his sniveling carcass from the floor. Phil and Tasha try to usher him out before they arrive, but he grabs Phil’s arm and shakes his head frantically. He leans his forehead against Coulson’s shoulder and just whispers,

“Please please please please.”

He feels Phil and Tasha exchange a look over the top of his head, doesn’t know what’s exchanged by that look, but they wait, both with a hand on his arms while he stands there unsteadily. He watches while Vespucci is collected, waits until he can’t hear footsteps on the stairs anymore. He turns his body the rest of the way towards Phil, and his knees start to buckle.

“Help me,” he gasps painfully. For just a second they try to help him stand back up, but he’s shaking his head wildly, almost in tears. That’s not what he wants.

“Phil,” says Tasha, sudden comprehension in her voice.

“Thank you,” whispers Clint in gratitude when she helps him the rest of the way to his knees without letting him fall.  He has to hold onto Phil’s pants legs to not keel over on his face, but he manages. He tips his head down, baring his neck.

“Master….” he pleads softly. Phil makes a little “ah” of comprehension.

“I’m so sorry Clint,” he says, his voice rough with emotion. “I was so concerned with getting you medical treatment that I didn’t think about it. I would have, in another minute.” He digs his hand into his pocket and pulls it out, silver spilling from his fist. The slide of the chain around his neck makes him close his eyes and choke back a sob of relief. With the tiny click of the key in the lock, everything feels right again.

Tasha holsters her gun and they walk out of the room together, not looking back. They have to help him up the stairs a little, but Clint makes it to the waiting ambulance on his own two feet. Kara and Ethan have already been taken away. He hopes they’ll be okay. Knows SHIELD will provide counseling if it’s needed, that they have people skilled in working with victims with special abilities. He stops thinking about it when they lay him down on a gurney inside the ambulance (on his stomach, thank all that’s merciful), closing his eyes. He feels the pinch of an IV needle sliding into his arm, the odd cool rush as the electrolytes of the lactated ringers solution starts to flow. He thinks he probably dozes a little on the way back to HQ, because he loses some time. They rush him up to medical, and a doctor takes his vital signs, examines his injuries. The man is kind, and as gentle a he can possibly be, but Clint is whimpering and panting before he’s finished. The doctor asks Phil and Tasha to leave the room, but they and Clint adamantly refuse. He knows what the doctor wants to ask anyway.

“No rape kit,” he mumbles.

“Are you certain you weren’t sexually molested in any way?” presses the doctor. It occurs to Clint that he was unconscious for a little while, but he can’t imagine Vespucci would have…he’d have wanted Clint awake and screaming for that. Besides, he’s not…there’s no pain there.

“Yes,” he says, very definitely.

Finally, _finally_ , after what seems like an interminable amount of time, they give him the good stuff through his IV tube, and the pleasant haze of Demerol washes over him, gently taking the pain away. The doctor leaves them alone, telling them he’ll be back to check on Hawkeye in a little while.

“Okay, beautiful boy?” murmurs Phil, his hand brushing across Clint’s hair.

“Awesome,” he replies blissfully. These drugs are awesome. Phil’s awesome. Tasha’s awesome. He has to concentrate really hard to lift both his hands but he does, opening and closing his fingers like a little kid asking for his favorite toy. Their hands slide into his and hold tight. “Yeah,” he sighs. “This is awesome.” He’s vaguely aware that maybe he should try to find another word, but this one is just so….awesome. He laughs.

“What is it?” asks Tasha curiously.

“You look hot, Tash,” he replies, which is not in the least bit relevant, but she is. “Girls get the best clothes.”

“You can borrow them if you want,” she says, keeping a straight face even though he can hear the laugh in her voice.

“Hey, I’m stoned, not stupid,” he protests, shoving at her…which would probably work better if he wasn’t holding her hand. “Don’t make funna me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she replies solemnly.

“L…liar,” he chuckles softly. “You make funna me alla time.”

“You make it pretty easy sometimes,” she agrees.

“Uh huh. I don’t wanna wear yer clothes, Tash. Look too good on you. You’re beautiful, did I tell you that? Cuz you are. Beautiful. Sorry my hair’s purple.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she replies, and he can tell she’s having to work really hard not to laugh at him again. He raises his head and glares severely at her.

“Phil,” he says in as lofty a voice as he can manage, which is probably not very, “spank her for me. She’s being mean to me. An she won’t lemme do it til my hair’s not porple. Popple. Purple. Fuck.”

“I see you haven’t forgotten how to swear properly,” says Phil, clearing his throat a little. Clint turns his head to peer at him suspiciously, because it sounds like Phil’s trying not to laugh at him too.  He’s only smiling indulgently thought. That’s okay.

“Nuh uh,” he agrees cheerfully. “Member what you said, Sir? Gotta havea con….conver….converSATION about my language.”

“I think I recall something like that.”

“Oooh, Phil!” he exclaims suddenly, trying to sit up, at which he is entirely unsuccessful because he’s on his stomach and they’re still holding his hands. That’s okay.

“Yes, baby?” asks Phil. Clint loves it when Phil calls him pet names. He loves it when Tasha calls him whatever she wants. What was he saying anyway? Oh yeah, the swearing.

“You gotta, I mean you really _gotta_ use that belt you got on tonight, kay?”

Phil lays his head down on the edge of the mattress and laughs until Clint starts to worry about him a little. Tasha’s no help, she’s laughing too. Mean. He mutters to himself that they’re both mean to him just cause he’s on good drugs and they’re jealous.

“Oh god,” gasps Phil, wiping his eyes with the back of his free hand. “I adore you. Of course I’ll use it, and you’re probably going to be very sorry you asked me to when the time comes.”

Time and tide may wait for no man, but lust isn’t much inhibited by painkillers either. Clint squirms a little at Phil’s words, and whines into his pillow.

“Fuck sir, “ he gasps, “promise?”

“I think it might be best to wait until you’ve healed some, but yes, I promise. You’ll be just as sorry as you want to be, when you’re ready.”

“Kay,” he mumbles happily. He’s feeling really nice and floaty now, and it’s hard to keep his eyes open. He keeps blinking owlishly at them for a little while, smiling, but after about two minutes, or possibly ten seconds, his eyes drift closed and don’t open again. Distantly, he’s aware that they leave him, dimly hears them whisper that they’ll be back. It’s okay. They’re probably tired too. They broke down walls for him, beat up a bunch of goons before backup arrived, and Tasha’d done it all while wearing a corset, she is just that hardcore. A tiny smile plays at his lips as sleep claims him.

 

“I’m not tired, I don’t want any more drugs, and I can rest perfectly well in the bed in the room I’m using on the seventeenth floor,” he grits through his teeth, holding on to the waistband of the penguin pants and glaring at the nurse who’s trying to take them away from him and make him get back in bed.

“Agent Barton,” she says soothingly, “you’ve been through a trauma. The doctor wants you to stay here for twenty four hours under observation before he clears you to return to quarters!” She’s trying to be patient, but she’s starting to look a little frayed around the edges.

“The doctor,” growls Clint furiously, “can come check on me IN MY ROOM the same’s he can if I was here! Let. Go!”

“I’m sorry, I can’t do that,” she says stubbornly.

He’s slept for like seven hours, he’s not sleepy anymore, this bed isn’t as comfortable as either of the ones he shares with Phil or Tasha, he’s tired of the stupid IV because he’s NOT dehydrated anymore, if he ever was. His whole body hurts and he doesn’t want any more painkillers. They’re great, they make him not care anymore that he’s hurt, but they make him stupid, make him slow. No thanks. He’ll pop a few ibuprofen or twelve and just deal with it. This isn’t even a very big deal on the scale of one to “other injuries Hawkeye has sustained in the line.”

“Listen, Nurse Ratched,” he grouses at her, “I appreciate your concern, but I’m FUCKING LEAVING. I can take care of myself.”

“Can you really?” Tasha asks drily. She’s leaning against the doorframe and looks entirely too entertained by the scene she’s just walked in on. She steps closer, reaches out to him, and pokes her finger at the middle of his back, playing the odds. Of course, she jabs right into the middle of one of the worst spots he has, because it’s one of the places a bunch of strokes overlapped. His back arches in agony and he makes a pained choking sound. He doesn’t fall down though, and turns to glare at her resentfully.

“With caretakers like you, I’m gonna have to,” he grumps at her, and keeps trying to take his pants…well, they’re probably Phil’s pants, which ok, is kind of hilarious that Phil owns lounge pants with penguins on them, but they’re better than a goddamn hospital gown. He’s sick of laying on this bed on his stomach so everybody who comes in can see his ass. It’s just a little too fucking vulnerable for his comfort.

“Kristin,” says Phil soothingly, entering the room behind Tasha and walking over to take control of the situation. The look he shoots Clint is rather sharp, and Clint’s belly does a pleasant little nervous flop. “I appreciate all you’ve done. Please inform Dr. Vance that I’m taking responsibility for Agent Barton’s early release. You won’t suffer any consequences from it, I’ll see to it.”

A little dubiously, the nurse lets go of the penguins and goes to get release papers.

“Thank god, Phil,” sighs Clint in relief. Phil steps up to him and looks at him for an uncomfortably long time.

“Just so you know,” says Coulson conversationally, “if you weren’t covered with lacerations and contusions right now, I would be throwing you over the end of this bed and blistering your ass for being disrespectful to that girl.”

Clint closes his eyes and makes a small, helpless noise. Phil is going to kill him before these marks have healed enough for the older man to actually be willing to lay a hand on him. He’s pretty damn sure he’s going to be begging for it a long time before that happens. Phil and Tasha help him gently into the lounge pants, which are quite soft but still feel like sandpaper against his skin. He apologizes with all the sincerity he can muster to nurse Kristin when she comes back, and she forgives him good-naturedly, warning him to take it easy for a few days. She tells Phil that the doctor will call him later, and they’re oh thank goodness, out of there.

He’s almost right. It nearly kills him. Since anything touching the entire back half of his body hurts like hell, he has to keep lying on his stomach, and it’s a lot less uncomfortable to do so naked. This keeps the marks from being irritated, but it doesn’t help his mental state at all. He spends his recovery in Phil’s rooms, because his bed is a lot bigger, and there’s an extra bedroom in case anybody needs some privacy. Nobody does. He sleeps between them at night, and one or the other is almost always with him throughout the day. Phil’s not on leave, exactly, though Clint and Natasha are, barring worldwide emergencies, but he’s taking a lot of breaks and delegating a lot of work. To lie there most of the day, in the same position he’d be in if he was going to get spanked or fucked, is slowly driving him insane. He’s half hard almost all the time, and has to constantly concentrate on not rubbing himself against the sheets. To make matters worse, the doctor has told Phil no physical exertion, which Phil decides means no sex, not even just an orgasm, until he’s cleared. Both he and Tasha are adamant about it, which is just mean. To make matters even worse than THAT, Phil is keeping a red spiral notebook of every time he whines or complains, every time one of them catches him trying to relieve the constant ache in his cock a little bit, every time he gets out of bed when he’s not supposed to, every time he’s sullen or grouchy or uncooperative. Clint’s a really active guy. This sedentary shit is driving him crazy. They’re both so ridiculously hot when they’re being bossy and telling him to be good or to stop being a brat that he’s about ready to quietly lose his fucking mind from frustration. And they SMILE at each other all the time too, which is just not fair. They’re enjoying it.

He knows for sure they’re doing it on purpose when one evening Tasha’s impatient with him because he’s been whining at her non-stop and she gets annoyed and slaps him on the leg. He yelps. He really has healed quite a bit, but the slap hurts like she’d hit him an awfully lot harder than she really had.

“Natasha.” Phil’s voice is deadly calm. Tasha looks nervous.

“Yes Sir?” she asks. Clint rubs the sting on the back of his leg and groans. There’s a quirk at the corner of her mouth, and when Phil comes to the doorway (he’s been doing paperwork in the living room) and glares ominously at her, his eyes are sparkling, just a little bit.

“Did you just strike Agent Barton?”

Tasha sighs. “Yes I did,” she says, a little defiantly. “He’s being a little shit and I got irritated with him.”

“I see. And did the doctor drop by and declare him recovered while I was up in my office earlier?”

“Um. No.”

“Perhaps you need to be a little more sympathetic towards his situation then,” purrs Phil ominously.

“I’ll try Sir,” she says meekly.

“That’s not precisely what I mean,” says Phil with a cruel smile. “Perhaps you’ll be more sympathetic once you understand a bit more clearly how he’s feeling.”

“Um,” says Tasha. “That won’t be necessary, Sir.”

“Oh, I think it will.” Phil’s voice is dripping with silky menace, and Clint buries his face in his pillow and moans.

Then, in front of his very eyes, Phil grabs Natasha by the arm, sits down in the armchair in the corner of the room, turns her over his lap, pulls down her pants, and spanks her. Hard. For a long time. While Clint watches. She yelps and whimpers and promises never to do it again, and he’s crosseyed with desperation by the time Phil finishes and lets her up. They crawl into bed beside him and Tasha sweetly asks him if he’d like to feel how hot her ass is. He glares at both of them, aggrieved.

“You are horrible people,” he cries plaintively. He does feel Tasha’s ass though. She’s right, it’s really hot.

“Did you like the show, baby boy?” asks Phil, looking smug.

“It was mean,” pouts Clint.

“Not too much longer,” Phil says softly, leaning forward to kiss him on the back of his head.

“Doesn’t matter, I won’t be able to enjoy it,” says the archer glumly.

“Why’s that?” asks Tasha curiously.

“Because,” he says resentfully. “I’m going to be FUCKING DEAD of sexual frustration before then!”

“Adding that one to the list,” says Phil, which is NOT HELPFUL.

Clint buries his face in his pillow and hopes crying a little isn’t undignified, because he’s gonna be reduced to that pretty soon.

It comes as no surprise to him at all that he considers himself healed a long time before Phil and the doctor do. He’s well aware that in the space of time between the two, he’s horrible. He begs. He wheedles. He flirts. He talks dirty, pants desperate filth into Phil’s ear at night until Phil threatens to gag him. Clint doesn’t like gags, so he stops then. At least he’s not confined to the bed anymore, and can sit in a chair and lay on his back again. Ok yeah, so after he does either one of them for more than an hour or so, he starts to feel it. So what? He’s been hurt a lot worse than he is right now, and done a fuckton more than he’s being allowed. He knows for damn sure he’s better enough to at least take care of himself and ease a little bit of the tension, but Phil catches him with his hand in his pants, lying in bed with his hips rolling slowly, eyes closed, head thrown back, his teeth worrying at his bottom lip while he whipsers desperate, dirty, mindless phrases to himself.

“Fuck,” he breathes, and his hand feels so good on his aching dick he can hardly even think, “want you to fuck me so bad Phil. Don’t even care if it hurts. Shit, oh god, oh damn….Please, please, punish me Sir, I can’t take it….yeah, I know you want to, know you’re gonna, just…ohh fuck…now please now, I can’t….Need it so bad, Master….Make it hurt. Fuck me. Spank me. _Ohgodohfuck_.  I’ve been so bad Sir…”

“You certainly have,” remarks Phil calmly from the doorway to the bedroom. Clint’s too desperate to even be startled. He groans and bites his lip harder.

“Master….” He whines.

“Hands off, baby boy,” says Phil sternly. Clint obey him, but his voice is trembling, agonized, when he cries out in a wordless plea for mercy. Phil sits down on the bed beside him. He rolls on his side and presses his face to Phil’s leg, whimpering miserably. Phil pets his head gently.

“I can’t stand it,” he cries sorrowfully.

“Shh, love,” murmurs Phil. “I know it’s hard. But we could have lost you. It was the worst hour of my life, fighting to get to you, knowing he had you and not knowing if you were alive or dead, or what he was doing to you. Getting in, and having to search for that door…I never want to do that again. When I saw you there, with your legs wrapped around that monster, his gun pointed at your body while you dripped blood on the floor and I saw the horrible things he’d done to you, saw the pain in your eyes….god, Clint, it was the worst feeling I have ever had. You are just going to have to put up with me being a stickler for the doctor’s orders until he clears you, because the only thing I can do, the only way I can make it up to you for leaving you in his hands for so long, for not saving you sooner, is to make sure you heal properly.”

Clint raises his head, all thoughts of masturbation vanishing from his brain, to stare at Phil in astonishment. His Master’s eyes are tormented and horribly, horribly sad.

“No,” he cries, getting up on his knees and looking wildly at Phil. This is awful, Phil can’t feel bad for this. “It wasn’t your fault!”

“Do you think Tasha or I care about fault? He had you for over an hour. It took us over an hour to save you, Clint! Every mark on your wonderful skin is one we should have been able to prevent. It was our job to back you up, to see you safe. We didn’t. All we can do to make it up to you is help make sure you don’t do what we’ve both seen you do so many times before and make yourself worse by trying to do too much too soon.”

“No no no,” says Clint furiously. “You saved me, you did. I should have been paying better attention, heard him or something. I saw those poor kids and I wanted to get them out pronto, and I rushed out when I should have gone slower, made sure I was still alone.”

“Nobody can fight a tranquilizer, Clint,” says Phil reprovingly.

“He shouldn’t have gotten the drop on me,” says Clint stubbornly. ”You _came_ for me, Sir. I knew you would. All the time, no matter what he did, I never doubted it. Not for a second. He wanted to break me, make me beg him for mercy, beg him to fuck me, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to, and he couldn’t break me, because I knew you were coming. I knew you and Tasha were going to come through that door and you did. You DID.”

Phil chuckles softly, carding his fingers through Clint’s hair, which is starting to not be purple anymore, now that showers don’t hurt his back.

“Maybe this is both our penance then,” he muses wryly. “Because I have to tell you, boy. You are making me crazy. When I walked through that door and saw you laying here, playing with yourself, whispering for me, I wanted so badly to come over here and give you what you were asking for. I wake up at night and I ache for you, I want to bury myself in your body to reassure myself that you’re really here and really safe, and ride you until you scream. I’m waiting, Clint, because when you’re cleared, I know I am going to be completely unable to be gentle with you, and so we are by god going to wait until you can take what I need to give you, what I need you to take from me. Do you understand that? I came up to tell you that I actually spoke to your doctor today and he cleared you for non-strenuous sexual activity. I also came to tell you that I can’t give you that, and I’m sorry for it. I don’t want you to come for me, beautiful boy, until you can come _for_ me. Can you understand that?”

Clint can’t really argue with him, because he totally does. Tasha is downstairs in the quarters they’d been using before the op, doing yoga because she needs more room than there is with three of them hanging around Phil’s place and she doesn’t trust any of the agents here due to not really having worked with most of them, so she won’t tie herself in knots in the studio on the fourth floor. He slips in and sits down on the couch to watch her, enjoying the exquisite control of her body, the unbelievable positions she can put herself in and just hold, eyes closed and face serene. He’s almost shaking he wants her so much, but he knows better than to interrupt her. Yoga is one of the ways Tasha keeps her rage under control. She’s done sooner than she usually is, because he knows most of her routine and she skips a lot of it, opening her eyes to look at him and smile.

He smiles back, a little bit shyly. Then she’s grinning at him and he grins back.

“Phil told you?” she asks, her voice a little husky.

“Yeah,” he whispers, feeling light-headed.

“No acrobatics,” she warns.

“No,” he sighs softly. “Tasha….I need you.”

It isn’t their usual style, has in fact only happened one other time, but they go to bed together and undress one another slowly, and they touch each other carefully, almost reverently. He’s shaking he wants her so much, and she knows of course, so she leans down and puts her mouth on him. His fingers tangle in her hair and he groans, desperate and trembling.

“I can’t….” he gasps. “I can’t….”

She backs off for a second. “Don’t,” she whispers. “Don’t hold back. It’s okay. We can take our time after this. Just let go, Clint.”

He feels as though he will shake to pieces, his head thrown back, panting and gasping her name, and he comes in under a minute, which is sooner than even his first time. He’s a little embarrassed, but she looks so pleased that he can’t stay that way. He kisses her, tasting himself in her mouth, and his hand skims down her belly and between her thighs. She loosens them with a sigh, and he finds her wet and wanting him. He strokes and teases and rubs her for a long damn time while she arches her hips up towards him and whispers his name. She comes twice before he’s ready again, but not because it takes him long. She just comes for him that easily.  Before long he is hard and wanting again, his hips moving against her thigh while he presses two fingers inside her and strokes. She rolls him over when she notices, and takes him slowly into her body, and gently rocks back and forth, until both of them are straining a little and he feels his balls draw tight and her pussy clamp down on him , and then he’s gone again, shouting, losing himself inside her while she murmurs profanities in Russian when she comes.

Phil was right, he thinks later. She has given so much so that he can be this happy, and it’s right for her to be first. They don’t do this often. Or hardly ever, the sweet and slow, deep and sure. He knows he wouldn’t want it all the time, because he’s crazy for the hot and nasty and violent that makes them crazy for each other, loves that they’re okay enough with everything they’ve done for (and to) each other that they can let go in front of each other, be as crude and sick and brutal and raw with each other as they need to be, and not be ashamed of it. He recognizes that there are not many people who would be okay with what he wants. No, be honest, he thinks, it’s what he needs. He knows the whys and wherefores are all tangled up in his childhood, from his violent drunk of a father to his scared mouse of a mother who didn’t defend her sons and finally let her husband kill her one night because she wouldn’t tell him not to drive, to his training in the circus, the cuffs and casual cruel slaps of the carnies and the roustabouts, the confusing way he felt when he got strapped to the wheel to have deadly weapons slung at his head while he rode a fine line between panic and exhilaration, to the rough and awkward affection of his teacher that almost, ALMOST fed the aching need in his heart to be loved and accepted and good enough, to sweet frightened Gretchen and him being so damn horny he was willing to do anything to get her to let him…just _let_ him. He gets that those things all added up to make him an adrenaline junkie and a foolish risk-taker, made him a liability, but damn, the work, the hunt, it had been fucking sweet. Then Phil, kind and believing in him despite stacks of evidence to the contrary. He thinks of Tasha the first time he’d seen her. God, she’d taken his breath away. Sleek, deadly, dangerous, beautiful, with a body made for sin. Just looking at her cross a street through his scope had made him hard. He remembered what he’d breathed to himself the first time he’d laid eyes on her. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, I have _got_ to hit that,” he’d whispered. It had almost been a prayer. He’s thankful he was such a lech though, because if he hadn’t been, he’d have taken the shot. Instead, he’d reported that he didn’t have it, and he’d watched her. Following like a shadow, always from above. It’s the only reason she didn’t catch him at it. Unlike most people, the Black Widow does look up, but she never looked quite close enough. She does now, he knows, because of him. She looks up, and he’s so glad, because nobody will ever get the drop on her like that again. So yeah, he knows why, understands they like what they like because of messed up childhoods and lives full of danger and terror and pain. You learn how to separate, how to be cold, how to turn it off, not feel pity, just not feel. When sex is brutal, it cuts through, burns away what you’ve got to turn off in order to do the job. Burns it away until you’re alive and you can feel again. They strip each other bare so that they don’t get hard. He’s so grateful for that. But this is good too, sometimes, to remind each other that everything isn’t about pain. To prove to themselves that they can treasure, and soothe, and love. There is no pain at all, only slow careful touches and the long sweet slide of the coming together. He takes her once more before they sleep, slipping inside her while they’re both already drowsy and content, lying on their sides with her fantastic ass snuggled up against his groin. He lifts her leg up by her knee and finds her arching back against him, her breath catching when he eases in slow. He reaches down in front of her, presses his hand against her belly, his fingertip brushing the lightest of circles around her clit. The sounds she makes are so gorgeous that he has to bury his face in her hair and press his teeth slowly against the muscle of her neck, not really biting down, just holding her that way. She shudders and cries out in Russian,

“oi Bozhe, Teper, pozhalyustya, sechas!” (Oh God, now, please, now). So he does. They fall asleep just like that, and though he slips from her body sometime in the night, it is the best night’s sleep he’s had since he learned what his role was going to be in the mission.

She has to leave three days later. She doesn’t really want to, but she’s not the one on injured reserve, and she’s needed. He kisses her goodbye, makes her promise to be as safe as she can be. That’s the main difference these days. Before, neither of them was very careful. They were reckless, heedless, crazy good and lived for the rush. Now, they’re sometimes still a little reckless, and they’re certainly still crazy good, but they live for more than the rush, so they’re as careful as they’re able to be. He waits until the Quinjet disappears from sight, then turns to go back down to Phil’s room. He’s seeing the doctor in a little while, and he’s trying really, really hard not to cross his fingers. Phil is standing there beside the door, waiting for him. His eyes blaze at Clint from across the helipad, cobalt blue and so hot he feels his knees wobble just a little. He stands there for a minute, transfixed by that look. Coulson lifts one hand, points his index finger at Clint, then turns it, crooks it towards himself. His lips move, and Clint can see what he’s saying even if the wind is too loud up here for him to hear it.

“Come. Here.”

He does, with his heart starting to pound a little bit, his breath catching in his throat. He notices as he gets closer that Phil has something in his other hand, mostly concealed behind his leg. His hand moves, and it swings loose from his fist, black and curling onto the gravel of the rooftop. Clint knows exactly what it is. It’s the belt Phil wore to the Power Exchange. His steps falter for just a second as he feels all the blood in his brain rush to his crotch. When he gets to Phil, he stands in front of him, breathless, trembling, all the days and days of want stealing his words so that all he can do is look at Phil and beg silently, hoping Phil can hear him. Phil reaches up, wraps the belt around the back of his neck, grasping both ends and pulling Clint closer with it. Their foreheads touch.

“I’ve just spoken with your doctor,” growls Phil. Clint makes a tiny, desperate noise. He wants to ask, but he can’t. He can’t say anything at all. Phil’s lips curve into a slow, nasty smile. “You’re cleared, baby boy.” A litany picks up in Clint’s brain that just says Thank you, Thank you, Thank you over and over again. Phil’s smile makes him want to start begging right. Fucking.  Now. “How long do you think it’s going to take us to deal with every page in that little red notebook?” Phil purrs. God, his voice is absolutely filthy.

Clint is so screwed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As horrible as the scenario at the beginning of this part is, I have seen things which are disturbingly close to that bad happen to people that I know and like. I really don't think I can reiterate enough that if you're a person who likes the things in my stories, or who is interested in trying them, NEVER NEVER NEVER meet at the home of a wonderfully dominant stranger you met on the internet, or go home with a Dom you just met and have nobody to vouch for. The people who take advantage of the needs and insecurities of submissives who have a hard time saying no have a special place reserved for them in hell, along with child molesters and people who talk at the theater (who knows what that line's from?)
> 
> Also I'd be interested to know who can tell me the two tongue-in-cheek real-world tie-ins I have made so far in this story


	8. Part Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As I warned, this chapter is pretty much just about what happens when Phil and Clint get downstairs. It really has no redeeming value at all. Except that I'm obviously incapable of preventing my brain and fingers from writing anything without drowning it in exposition, tons of insight into characters, background story I'm shamelessly inventing (what is canon?) and probably needless amounts of sidebars and detailed descriptions of things like Clint's blue jeans and what his t-shirt means and crap like that. 
> 
> You've been warned.

Although part of Clint wishes Phil would just start right in on him, overwhelm him, _drown_ him in what he’s been dying for, he’s not surprised when what actually happens is that Phil needs to talk first. What happened isn’t the sort of thing you just ignore and then dive right back into doing everything as intensely as you had before, because there’s no way to know how both partners are going to react. They’re both well aware that Vespucci could have killed Clint. That’s a little bit of a thing, but not as much as it might be to some people. After all, Clint’s been in too many situations to count where he could have been killed.

“As much as I’d really like to be fucking you right this minute,” Phil says, smiling crookedly at Hawkeye, who closes his eyes and suppresses a shiver, because oh god oh yes oh please he wants that too, “I think we’d better talk about a few things first.”

“I really don’t think I’m going to have any kinds of problems with you fucking me, Sir,” he says with a flash of the devil-may-care grin he knows Phil secretly adores. “Any way you want to.”

Phil smiles again. They are, in fact, doing an awful lot of smiling, so Clint doesn’t think this is going to be a bad conversation.

“No, and you have no idea how relieved I am that you…that that monster didn’t…”

“Yeah,” says Clint softly. “Me too. I mean, it wouldn’t have killed me or anything, but that’s something I’ve managed to avoid every time some psycho’s gotten his hands on me and decided I looked like I needed some new scars. I gotta tell you Sir, I don’t miss that part of the undercover work. Mostly now I just get to shoot stuff. “

“The Avengers Initiative has been good for you in a lot of ways. You’re less solitary than you used to be, you’re much more open about what you need, what makes you happy. You have friends you actually do things with, and…” Phil clears his throat.

“And it got me into your bed, Sir.”

“Smartass,” says Phil fondly, but Clint knows perfectly well that’s what he’d meant too. If Hawkeye was still a regular SHIELD agent, he’d probably still have Coulson as his handler. “At any rate, I am very glad we’re not having to sit here and work through sexual abuse issues. I would do it, gladly…I’d do anything you needed. I’m just….glad the necessity isn’t there.”

“Okay, we agree on that part,” says Clint, shifting a little impatiently. God, he feels like he’s been waiting for YEARS. Damn. “Can we, please Sir, get to the point? I want you so much right now I’m gonna fall at your feet and bawl in a minute.” Phil’s eyes flash at this.

“Probably be doing that anyway,” he murmurs, which is so completely unhelpful Clint can’t even put it in words. He just whimpers. Phil takes a breath, seems to shake himself a little. Clint’s glad to see it’s effecting him too. “What I feel we do need to talk about is the fact that there may be emotional fallout for you from the torture you endured at Vespucci’s hands. I have concerns that the fact that his methods closely mirrored the sorts of activities we participate in, resuming our scenes at the same level of intensity we had before might cause you some serious mental  trauma.”

“It didn’t,” says Clint definitely.

“Didn’t what?”

“Didn’t closely mirror anything we’ve done.”

“I saw what he used, Clint,” says Phil gently. “The cane, the flogger, the single tail? We’ve used all of those as well.” Clint huffs in frustration because he knows what he wants to make Phil understand but he doesn’t know if he can find the right words to do it.

“It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d used YOUR cane and flogger and single tail, Sir,” he says earnestly, “Except well, ok, he wouldn’t have been able to hurt me as much. I mean there was nothing he did to me, at the club or at his house, that reminded me of you in any way. He couldn’t have. I was a thing, a trophy, to him. He objectified. You…ugh, I don’t know how to say this. You can make me feel like the only person in the world, like something shiny and valuable, at the same time you’re making me crawl on the floor for you. I can be begging you for mercy, bawling my damn eyes out, covered in welts and bruises and bite marks and come, and I never wonder if I’m safe. I just know. You never make me feel like there’s something wrong with me that I want this so much, that I love it when I’m drowning in what you’re doing to me, that it just flat fucking does it for me when you push me right up to that shiny knife edge where if we stepped wrong, we’d fall, only I never worry that we will. I just know we won’t. Ok, you have done a few things to me that have come close, for a minute or two, to hurting as much as maybe a few of the times he hit me, because he didn’t break skin every time, just most of the time. But there’s nothing….Phil, I swear it, nothing that happened that night that made me think of you, except that it was you and Tasha I held on to in my head to keep him out. He…he wanted me to call him master.”

“It’s all right if you did, baby boy,” says Phil, laying his hand on Clint’s knee. “I wouldn’t care what you said to make him stop.”

“I didn’t though,” says Clint, and he stares unflinchingly into Phil’s eyes. “And it wasn’t just that I refused to let him break me. Master, he _couldn’t_. He couldn’t touch the place that’s you inside me. I screamed, oh hell yeah, and he liked that, but I never called him what he wanted. I promise you, I have not had a single nightmare or flashback or bad moment remembering it since you got me back here. Not one. He was nothing. A job. There’s just not room for him in me, not anywhere. You fill up all the place he was trying to push in to.”

Phil doesn’t respond to this with words. His fingers slide behind Clint’s neck and tug him closer, and Phil kisses him like he’s drowning and Clint’s oxygen. When he stops, they’re both breathing a little raggedly. Phil sucks in a breath as they sit there, the way Clint has come to love so much, foreheads touching, breath mingling, Phil’s hand on the back of his neck or in his hair.

“I thought I knew what I wanted from you when you got better, baby,” whispers Phil. “I thought I’d reclaim you, make you scream for me and not him, take back what he stole from us. Don’t get me wrong. I am going to enjoy every damn second of strapping you raw, and I mean to do it, tonight. Soon. I mean to take you so hard you can taste me in your throat. I mean to wash away the image of the blood on you with marks that are _mine_.”

“Please,” sighs Clint, feeling desperate.

“Please what?” chuckles Phil.

“Please NOW?” The chuckle turns into a laugh, and then Phil’s tugging him to his feet and they’re moving towards the bedroom.

“You’re going to have to wait a little longer, beautiful boy. I’m going to do it, have no fear. Your ass has a lot of extremely naughty behavior to pay for. But…Clint…I just need to be with you right now. I need to touch and taste every inch of you until I know you’re really real and really safe. I think the only thing I want to hear when I slide into you this first time is god and yes and more. I love hurting you, baby, and I’m going to, but I think I want you to let me love you first.”

Clint says the only thing he can possibly say under the circumstances.

“Yes Master.”

It breathtakingly, almost unbearably lovely. Phil touches him, everywhere he likes to be touched, slowly and carefully for a very long time. He presses kisses into the archer’s skin, strokes with his tongue, nips softly with his teeth. Clint tries to touch him too, but Phil gathers his wrists in one hand and holds them above his head, gently. Clint doesn’t fight. It’s where Phil wants his hands to be, but he shakes with the effort it costs him not to.

“So beautiful,” Phil’s lips whisper into the skin on Clint’s hipbone. He laves the spot with his tongue. “You taste so good, baby boy. Your body is the only thing I see when I think of perfect. So strong. Have I told you how wild it makes me for you that you could stop me any time you wanted to, that you could turn the tables and there would be nothing I could do about it, but that you never do? It’s such a gift, Clint. I could just sit and watch the way the muscles in your back and arms move under your skin all day long. Of course,” he breathes against the quivering muscles of Clint’s belly, “tasting is even better.”

Clint’s nearly mindless by the time Phil finishes telling him about all the parts of the archer he likes, and showing him with his tongue and lips and fingertips. He knows he’s writhing and panting and making some very undignified noises, but he can’t help it. Phil keeps him on his back, leans over Clint’s shivering body, one hand propping himself up with a hand braced beside Clint’s arm, while the other moves slowly between his legs, fingers silky slick with lube, and slides one slowly inside him. Clint’s hips jerk and he gasps.

“Oh god,” he groans.

“No pain this time, beautiful boy. I want to take my time, make you ready for me, and take you slow and deep and so, so good. It’ll hurt next time, but this time you’ll gasp and whimper for me because it’s so good you almost can’t stand it.”

“I can’t stand it _now_ ,” pleads Clint, hands above his head grasping desperately at the air.

“Shh,” soothes Phil, slowly and carefully adding a second finger, pressing in gently until his fingertips brush the spot that makes Clint’s breath whine in his throat with frantic need and his hips arch helplessly. He takes forever, until Clint’s delirious with it. He pumps in and out slowly, he twists and curls his fingers, presses and rubs inside him until Clint is almost sobbing for him. He scissors his fingers slowly and carefully, pausing every time the whine becomes even the tiniest bit pained. Clint wants to scream. He wants the burn. But oh fuck, this is awesome too. The mercilessly slow opening of his body is a kind of torment that in some ways surpasses the quick and dirty.

“Please Master,” he pleads, his voice barely more than a thread of sound. “Oh please don’t make me wait anymore. I’ve waited so long. I need you in me. Take me, Master. Love me, fill me, _fuck_ me. Any way you want. Just need it so bad. Slow or fast or hard or soft. Be in me. Please. Please. Wanta feel you. Oh Phi, oh please, now. Now, now, now.”

Phil makes a deeply satisfied and pleased sound in his throat.

“All right, beautiful boy. Now,” he agrees.

He tilts Clint’s hips upwards with both hands, gently pulling his cheeks apart and angling his cock for his hole. Clint throws his head back as his lover slides into him with one torturously slow, easy push of his hips. There’s not even a whisper of burn or ache, he takes Phil’s cock easily, and it wrings a deep, tormented groan from his chest.  The pace Phil sets is pure, perfect agony. Not because it hurts at all, but because it’s KILLING him. Phil’s staring at his face intently, watching Clint’s expression flicker from ecstatic pleasure to agonized  desperation and back again.

“I could watch you like this all night,” Phil murmurs. Clint whimpers.

“ _Ffffuuuuuuuuckkkk,”_ he moans brokenly. “Please, I can’t take it. You’re killing me, Sir. It’s….I’m….I…. _Shit_ , just please.”

The slow steady rub of Phil’s cock over his prostate with every single thrust is unraveling him bit by bit. His own dick is so hard he’s not even sure he could stand to touch it. He’s not gonna have to, pretty soon. But oh man, he wants the tight grip of Phil’s fist on him when he spills. Tears spring up in his eyes, because he’s been wanting for so fucking long, it seems like YEARS. This tenderness is devastating. He couldn’t defend himself against it if he wanted to. He doesn’t, of course, but it feels like every single atom in his body aches with yearning. Phil can tell. Phil always can. His fingers trail along Clint’s thigh, smooth over his hip, and circle slowly around his cock. Clint’s cry is mindless with relief. It feels so goddamn good. Heat coils hard in his belly, and his balls draw tight.

“Can’t hold on, Master, feels so good. Oh god. I wanna come so bad, don’t think I can…. _Please_ Sir, please please say yes.”

Phil smiles, he thinks. He’s not entirely sure, because he can’t even SEE around the mounting burn in his brain and his body.

“Yes, baby boy,” gasps Phil, as his back arches and his hips snap forward, burying himself as deep as he can and holding there, head back and his orgasm making his cock pulse inside the younger man’s body. Clint comes apart, shouting and shaking, hands slapping over Phil’s wrists where his hands hold Clint’s hips and holding on like his life depends on it.

They stay just as they are for several minutes, looking at each other and grinning like fools. Clint doesn’t feel wrung out and sleepy like he usually does after sex with Phil. Likely this is because most of the time he’s been pushed to his limit, muscle and sinew and nerve stretched to the snapping point like a too-tight bow string, flooded with sensation and the control Phil exerts over him, so that he feels like he has run a marathon by the end, trembling and drained and drowning in endorphins. Now though, he feels energized, eager. He’s not thinking about anything except that Phil had said soon. Tonight. Phil can see him practically vibrating and laughs.

“You look like you’re waiting for your daddy to wake up and let you go downstairs and open your Christmas presents,” he says with a laugh, easing slowly out of the archer’s body (which makes both of them shudder a little) and sitting back on his heels to look down at Clint, who  flushes and can’t quite prevent himself from squirming a little in eagerness.

“Do I get switches in my stocking?” he grins.

“Well now, if that doesn’t give me some interesting thoughts,” muses Phil, and Clint moans softly. “You’ll settle for the belt this time, baby boy.”

“Oh _please_ ,” whines Hawkeye eagerly.

“This is what’s going to happen,” says Phil, his voice going all stern and hot and Clint wants to bite him sometimes, which Phil actually likes, but that’s probably not exactly the right response at this moment. “You’re going to get up and go take a shower in your own quarters. You’re going to clean up your room if it’s messy, because if it isn’t neat as a pin, you’re going to be in even more trouble AND I’ll make you wait until tomorrow to get it. I want you wearing your faded jeans. Do you know the pair I mean?” Clint nods. Phil’s talking about the pair he’d been wearing that day in his office. He squirms, thinking about it. “Good boy. And your Wash t-shirt. Is it clean?” Phil’s talking about a brown t-shirt Clint ordered off the internet a couple of years ago. It has a graphic of two toy dinosaurs on it, a stegosaurus and a t-rex. The printing says, “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal.”  It’s one of his favorite shirts. Firefly is awesome.  He’s pretty sure he understands exactly what Phil’s going for here. What they’re doing tonight isn’t about _real_ punishment. Come to think of it, Phil’s never punished him for REAL. He knows he screws up plenty, so that’s probably going to happen one of these days, but he doesn’t like thinking about it much. The difference between getting a spanking for being a brat and getting a spanking for disappointing Phil is not just miles apart. It’s galaxies of different. Phil’s also sending him the message that he gets to be the bad boy tonight, but that he doesn’t want Clint going all the way over into little kid ageplay. He has no idea why the choice of those jeans and that t-shirt telegraph this message to his brain quite so clearly, but it does. That Phil can communicate so much stuff to him just by telling him what to wear makes him love his Master so much he almost can’t stand it.

“Yes Master, it’s clean,” he says breathlessly.

“Good. No shoes or socks.”

“Yes Sir. Do you want me to put on the eyeliner?” Phil’s slow grin in response to this question curls Clint’s toes. It’s positively feral.

“No. Why put it on when you’d only be crying it all off?”

Oh for the sake of all that is holy. And unholy.  And sort of holy. And just a little unholy. And everything the fuck in between. He’s sure he’s gonna just DIE.  He tries to formulate a response but it just comes out, “hnnngh,” which makes Phil laugh.

“After you’ve done all this, you will stand in the corner…I don’t particularly care which one, so long as it’s in your bedroom, with your nose to the wall, and you’ll wait for me. If you’re not where you’re supposed to be when I get there, you’re going to find out how it feels to take your strapping wearing a butt plug lubricated with peppermint oil.”

Fuck. Just….fuck. Does he not know that makes Clint really, really want to know what that would feel like? Oh what is he thinking, of course Phil knows. He’s watching Clint bite his lip and roll his hips with a mean little half a smile on his face. Clint won’t disobey him though. He’s just going to be wondering about how bad peppermint oil would actually burn in his asshole. Which he pretty much expects he’s gonna find out one day soon.

“Yes Sir,” he gasps. “How long do I have, Sir?” The mean little smile becomes an evil one.

“That’s just the point, beautiful boy. You don’t get to know.”

“Oh shit.”

“Better hurry,” agrees Phil.

Clint dresses in record time and flies to the elevator and down to the guest apartment floor where he’s only slept a few times, and only while Tasha’s been with him. His impulse is to shower in about two minutes (he can do it) but he reins himself in with the realization that Phil will probably notice if he hasn’t been thorough, like check behind his ears or some shit, so he makes himself take care to wash every inch of his body. His own hands slick and soapy on his skin make him half-crazy just because he can’t stop his racing mind from imagining what’s going to happen. He loves being whipped with Phil’s belt. It makes him feel like _such_ a bad little boy. Ok, not a LITTLE boy….it makes him feel like the horny, kinky, smartassed rotten brat he’d been at sixteen and seventeen, after he’d discovered sex and bondage and was getting really really good with the bow and got to perform most of the time instead of just being tied to stuff and being the target (which he actually kind of missed). It makes him think of when he’d believed he was invincible and his brain swam every night with images of being held down, tied up, of how he’d felt when Trickshot had punished him for sneaking into the cat runs, his belt cracking down over and over, the rush he felt when Gretchen bit him, dug her sharp little fingernails into his skin, of what it would feel like to just be _taken_. That latter had messed with him some, because in his mind at that time he’d been pretty single-mindedly focused on girls, but he’d walked around a corner between two of the crew trailers late one night when he couldn’t sleep and seen one of the roustabouts with Eddie Gervase, who was a tightrope walker. The roustabout was huge, well over six feet tall and bulging with muscles all over, his wifebeater tank top stained with sweat and grease, lank dark hair falling in his eyes, the fly of his jeans open and his heavy belt buckle chiming rhythmically with his grunting thrusts as he held Eddie smashed face-first against the side of the trailer, Eddie’s pants around his knees, his ass pale in the moonlight. Eddie had been panting and whining and babbling so fast Clint hadn’t been able to tell what he’d been saying. When he woke up with his cock achingly hard, he’d wondered what kind of a horrible person it made him that in his dream Eddie had been begging the roustabout to STOP. He’s so crazy about the way sometimes Phil makes him feel that way, and yet they both still remain solidly themselves, which doesn’t confuse Clint nearly as much as it sounds like it ought to. Maybe it’s because they’re spies. They’ve been good at being several people at once for years. While he muses, he’s leaning against the wall of the shower, propped up with one arm, his head down and his eyes closed, his other hand lazily stroking his mostly hard dick. He shakes himself out of it. He has no idea how much time he has, and he’s pretty sure Phil’s reaction to finding out he’s brought himself off in the shower would be….spectacularly unpleasant for him. He finishes his shower quickly, dries off, runs his fingers through his hair (which is mostly about all he does with it anyway) and decides that even though Phil hadn’t included it in his instructions, he should take the time to shave anyway.  He pauses in indecision over underwear, then throws caution to the wind and slips on the bright golden yellow boxer briefs that have a smiley face emblazoned boldly across the ass. The jeans are his absolute favorite, so old they’re nearly fuzzy in a few places from so many washings, are worn down to just a few threads in several places. They’re nearly white, probably because he’s essentially had to bleach them a few times over the years to get blood out of them, and they fit him like someone painted them on him, snug like second skin hugging his hips, his ass, his thighs. They’re not the kind of tight that makes even a guy look like he’s got camel toe. Clint’s not that kind of masochist. They’re just molded to his body like they were made for him. They’re bootcut, because he wears jump boots more often than any other kind of footwear, so they’re sort of loose and puddle around his feet, his bare toes sticking out under the hem. Tasha has threatened to kill him if he ever gets rid of them. The top button hits right under his belly button, his hip bones rise just barely over the waistband. He pulls the t-shirt over his head, grinning at the dinosaurs. He’s murmuring the scene to himself as he picks up discarded socks, dusts the bedside table, and makes the bed.

“’Ah yes, this is a fertile land, and we will thrive here. We will rule over this land, and we will call it…..this land. ‘I think we should call it your grave!’ ‘Ah, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal.’ ‘Now die, rawr!’”

He stands in the doorway to assess the room. Clint’s a very observant person, but he realizes that he’s so tied up in knots over this, over how long he’s had to wait (if anybody ever tries to tell him ten days isn’t very long again for the rest of his life, he’s going to shoot them in the foot and tell them he’ll take the arrow out in ten days), over the tightness of his jeans pressing against his half-aroused state, over straining to listen for the door beginning to open, that he recognizes he might not be paying enough attention to catch some little detail he missed. And honest to God, he’s gonna fuckin die if Phil makes him wait until tomorrow! Yeah ok, it’s good that he stepped back to look, because there’s a sock sticking out just an inch from under the corner of the bed over there, and a half-empty water glass on the bedside table near the window. When he picks it up to go put it in the sink, he sees that the water in the glass is sloshing back and forth just a little. His hands are shaking, he’s so wound up. No, be honest with yourself, he thinks. You’re nervous as shit. It’s like first date jitters, knowing you’re getting laid for the first time, getting sent to the principal’s office (the one who has the big, scary paddle), and going in for a super important job interview all wrapped up in one, plus a massive erection. Jesus. He’s losing his mind.

Standing in the corner is one of the hardest things he’s ever done in his life. Ok, it’s not as hard as being tortured. But standing there, with his back to the door, looking at nothing but the plain white of the wall, with his hands clasped behind his back is both awful and amazing at the same time. He shifts back and forth on his feet, because he can’t help it, it’s so damn hard to stand still. He hates not being able to see the door. It goes completely against his nature. It’s hideously vulnerable. Which, he supposes, is part of the point. It also focuses him utterly on what’s coming. He’s acutely aware of the fact that he’s standing there waiting for Phil to come beat the crap out of him. He presses the backs of his hands against the soft denim covering his ass and shivers a little. He has an excellent visual memory, so he visualizes every inch of that thick leather belt, knows it has seven holes, that the buckle is two inches wide and made of steel. It’s going to hurt like fucking hell. He tries to stop thinking about it because he’s going to come in his pants if he doesn’t. It doesn’t help, because when he stops thinking about Phil’s belt, he starts thinking about Phil’s cock, and the shivery, almost-sick feeling he gets when the moment comes that he’s about to force it into Clint’s ass, the way it burns when it opens him whether he’s ready for it or not (not is good, not is very good). It makes him feel helpless, violated, vulnerable. It hurts like nothing else, its own unique tangle of sensation and emotion. He wasn’t lying when he told Phil he was okay with any way Phil wanted to fuck him, because that’s absolutely true, but when it’s rough and kind of brutal, it just wrecks him. He’s starting to feel like his skin is too tight, that he’s going to just ignite and melt a huge hole in the carpet. He leans his forehead against the wall and groans softly. Phil, he thinks desperately, please hurry.

He doesn’t have any idea how long he’s been standing there when he hears the lock uncode. Ten minutes? An hour? Four days? He straightens up and stares straight ahead at the fascinating view of the walls meeting in his corner. His hands behind his back are clenched so tight his fingers hurt, but they tremble if he relaxes them. The desire to turn around is so strong that the effort it takes to stay still wrings a tiny pained sound from his throat. He can sense and hear and smell Phil as he enters the bedroom, the soft scuff of his shoes on the carpet, the spatial awareness of not being alone in the room anymore, the scent of the soap Phil uses, the scent he wears which makes Clint think of leather and cedar and spice. Phil says nothing for the longest time. It’s agony to stand there, unable to see him, but Clint does it. His whole body clenches in a violent shudder when he hears the clink of Phil’s belt buckle being unfastened.

“Turn around,” says Phil quietly, after an eon of waiting. Clint obeys him, and a small moan escapes his lips. Phil’s wearing his black jeans from the night of the op, one of his flawlessly white Brooks Brothers shirts with the sleeves rolled up, and his engineer boots. He’s not wearing the vest, but he doesn’t need it. The belt; the two inch wide, eighth of an inch thick, black leather belt he’s going to use, really fucking soon, oh god; is unbuckled and hanging there, open but still around Phil’s waist. His voice fails him, and he can only mouth the word, “fuck.”

“Really?” says Phil dangerously. “That pretty mouth of yours is most of what’s gotten you where you’re standing right now, and you think it’s a good idea to make it worse?”

Clint ducks his head, shoots Phil a hopeful look out from under his eyelashes (which Phil says are ridiculous) and has to clear his throat a couple of times before he’s even capable of speech.

“It doesn’t count unless I say it out loud?”

“Mm,” says Phil. “No.” Clint gulps. He is in so, so much trouble. There’s no way in fuckin…no way in hell he’s going to get through this without swearing. None. He’s cussed like a sailor since he was about ten. Maybe younger. When you’re little and you have no control over your life, and you can’t hit back and you can’t get away and the only things you own are the words that come out of your mouth, you have to do something. The nuns at the orphanage had tried to beat it out of him. Nobody in the circus had cared. A lot of his…freelance….clients had found him offensive. His SHIELD file has so many reprimands for insubordination, profanity, offensive language and disrespect for authority that he’s pretty sure he’s got his own drawer down in records, where Fury is for some reason fond of keeping hard copies of everything. Phil never wrote him up for cussing. Phil never wrote him up at all. Phil, for some inexplicable reason, has always thought he was funny and clever and innovative and trustworthy. Even if he has a mouth like a sewer.

“Master,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. I’ll…I’ll try to do better, try to stop. I…don’t mean to be disrespectful.” He feels like an ass, because he remembers all the gentle suggestions Phil made over the years that he could probably find more eloquent ways to express himself, that he might find people would take him more seriously if he cleaned up his language a little. Phil, however, is not amused by his apology or his declaration. He strides over and pushes Clint back into the corner, his hand on the younger man’s throat. Not squeezing, just pressing a little.

“No,” he says emphatically. “This is not about changing you, Clint. You are perfect _exactly_ the way you are. I adore every filthy word that comes out of your mouth, especially when it’s because of something I’m doing to you. If I encouraged you to act differently over the past years, it was only because I wished more people could see you for the person you were, and not the crass, rude behavior problem they thought you were. I knew better, have always known better. And now? Every handler who passed you on to someone else is kicking himself because they’re not sitting where I am right now.”

“You’re not sitting where you are now because of me,” protests Clint. Phil’s mouth jerks a little.

“Well,” he says, looking Clint up and down, “actually right _now,_ I really am. However, you’re right and you’re wrong. Part of the reason I got this promotion is because I am just that good at what I do. But part of it is because of you and Natasha. Having the two greatest assets this organization has ever known on my resume doesn’t hurt. I chose you, and I kept you. And you brought SHIELD the Black Widow. How do you think that makes me look to the rest of this organization?”

“Pretty hardcore, I guess,” agrees Clint reluctantly.

“Baby boy,” says Phil gently, easing his hand back and stroking his fingers up the side of Clint’s neck, “The day may come when I have to punish you for something real. That’s NOT tonight. And it’s NOT going to be for foul language. If you earn yourself a few extra strokes for cursing, it’s only because it goes straight to my cock when you talk that way. Tonight is about something we both want, not about anything real you’ve done wrong. Do you understand that?”

“Yes Sir,” breathes Clint. Phil’s face is so close he can smell peppermint toothpaste. God, he thinks wildly. Kiss me, please kiss me, I’ll die if you don’t. Phil always knows what to say to him. He always has.

Phil, unsurprisingly, kisses him. You always know, thinks Clint dazedly. The kiss is achingly sweet. Phil’s fingers slide through the fading purple strands of his hair. Clint closes his eyes and sighs.

“Now,” whispers Phil, their mouths still touching so that his words vibrate against Clint’s lips, making him shiver, “Go to the bed. Pull down your pants and bend over the pillows I’ve placed at the end.”

Trying not to let his hands keep shaking, Clint obeys. Because there’s no point in wearing them unless they’re going to be seen, he pulls his jeans down first, leaving his shorts on. Phil huffs out a soft laugh.

“Cute,” he says with a smirk. “now pull them down.” Clint swallows another helpless groan and does as instructed. Phil has stacked up several pillows at the end of the bed so that when he bends over them his feet are flat on the floor,  legs straight, and his hips are elevated while his upper body rests comfortably on the bed. It makes him feel a little bit like a trussed up goose….that’s about to be cooked.

The red notebook plops down on the bed in front of his face. He hears the soft hiss of leather sliding against cloth.

“Open it,” says Phil. His voice is very bland. Clint does so. Inside, the first page is filled, top to bottom, with a numbered list. Beside each number, printed in Phil’s neat, square printing, is a short description of one of Clint’s infractions during his convalescence. “Read the first one, word for word as it’s written there, out loud.” Clint swallows hard.

“One,” he whispers, flushed and embarrassed and hideously nervous. “I was very rude to Kristin in the medical wing while demanding to be released against doctor’s orders, impairing her ability to do her job.”

“Like the first person touch?” asks Phil pleasantly. “I thought it would make it sound more like a confession from you when I made you read them.” Clint hopes it’s a rhetorical question because he doesn’t think he’s capable of formulating and answer.

CRACK!

“ _Gah!_ ” yelps Clint. Fuckfuckfuck. The belt bites hard. Heat flares, then quickly spreads and softens to warmth. It’s exactly like what he’d imagined, exactly as intense, exactly as painful, exactly right.

“Read the next one,” Phil orders.

“T…two. I was rude when Natasha asked how I was feeling and demanded to be given clothes to put on even though I was told it would be too painful and behaved like a stubborn little boy, hurting myself in the process. This also caused me to ruin a perfectly good t-shirt.”

The belt lashes across his ass once, then again without any pause. Clint bites his lip and hisses. He’s starting to have a bad feeling he sees where this is going. His suspicions are further roused when Phil makes him read the third one, which concerns his bitching about wanting a damn hamburger instead of a bowl of chicken soup.

Three hard strokes.

“Jesus,” he gasps. “Sir, that really stings!”

“I expect it does,” says Phil smugly.  “Next.”

This time, it’s four. When Clint opens his eyes after having clenched them shut against the prickle of tears, he looks down the page. Only two more. Phil’s pretty detailed in his record keeping. A couple of them are practically paragraphs. His ass is already on fire. The softness of the pillow under his dick feels a lot better than he’d like, because if he doesn’t want to come (well of course he wants to come, but he doesn’t think Phil would be amused) he’s going to have to be still. And who the fuck can be still with Phil Coulson looking like sin and blasting away at their ass with that belt? His brain short circuits with every stroke. It hurts like crazy but it feels fucking amazing at the same time. He’s whimpering and panting, yelping a little with every hard, deliberate stroke. Five more. Then six more. He’s coiled tight as a spring, but relaxes a little, gasping into the bedspread where he’s pressed his face, when Phil finishes the last six.

“Turn the page,” growls Coulson.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” whimpers Clint helplessly. He’s fucked. There’s more? Of course there’s more. He’s not even crying yet. But….just….. _fuck._

“Stop!” barks Phil when he reaches out a shaky hand to flip the page over. Confused, he freezes.

“S…sir?”

“Didn’t I mention that bad language was going to make this worse?” Oh Jesus. His belly clenches hard, and the silky menace in Phil’s voice goes straight to his dick. He bucks just a little against the pillow, hoping Phil doesn’t notice, which is absurd, of course he does. “You do know that if you come before I’m finished with you, we’re going to repeat this tomorrow, don’t you?” Clint has no idea how to respond to this, not that his brain is really forming a lot of words right this second anyway. He’s pretty sure he says something like, “uhhhhngh,” but that may be in his head.

“Reach back, grab your ass cheeks, and spread yourself open,” Phil orders. Clint suddenly recalls with alarming clarity one little thing Phil had said to him they day of the op, on the couch in his rooms, one of the nasty threats Clint had used to arouse himself during Vespucci’s flogging so the bastard would think he’d enjoyed it. One threat that was different from anything else Phil had ever threatened to do, one thing he had never done before, a thing that had made Clint’s eyes roll back in his head and his toes curl.

“Oh please,” he whispers, terrified, exhilarated. No, he can’t. He wouldn’t. That’s….he’d been kidding, inventing crazy sick unbelievable shit to turn Clint inside out. He’s not going to hit me _there,_ he thinks dizzily. Is he?

“Now,” snaps his Master coldly. Shaking like a leaf, Clint obeys. The cooler air of the room on his asshole makes him shudder, wrenches a tiny sob from his chest.

“For the remainder of this….little session in discipline,” purrs Phil, and Jesus his voice is hot. It’s rough and deep and nasty, and Clint wants to suck him down like candy. “Every time you have trouble controlling your dirty mouth, you’re getting this strap. To drive home the point, since _fuck_ seems to be your favorite word, you’ll be getting it on the relevant part of your body. You’ll be getting it, in other words, where you get _fucked_ , little boy. Same relevance, of course, applies to _shit_ , although I’m sure you can work that one out on your own. Better take a deep breath, this is going to sting.”

And Phil snaps the end of the belt down. Directly on Clint’s exposed hole. The bite of it feels like it stabs down deep into his asshole. He howls. It burns. It stings. It…oh shitfuckgoddamn _please_ Phil you have GOT to do that again, he thinks dazedly, while he writhes and mewls in pain, his hands letting go of his ass and clutching the bedspread.

“Shall we continue?” asks Phil conversationally, as though he has not just rendered Clint a babbling moron. The archer wrestles his brain back into the same time zone as the rest of him with difficulty.

“How….how many pages are there?” he pleads hoarsely.

“Nine,” grins Phil heartlessly.

“Oh god.”

“Any time you’re ready, boy. The longer you keep me waiting, the harder I’m going to whip you.”

Something clicks in Clint’s throat when he swallows, and he sucks in a shuddering breath and looks down at the page. He nearly cries in relief when he sees that the two pages open before him are each numbered starting from one. He can’t imagine…because he’s not capable of anything so coherent as math right now….how many strokes it would add up to if Phil had kept numbering in sequence from page to page. A fuckton.  It’s still…gonna be pretty bad.

Phil’s getting mean with it now, really laying into him, and he feels like he’s drowning and flying at the same time. He doesn’t know how that can even BE, but it is. It’s hard to breathe. It hurts, the strokes are merciless and his backside is welted and he can feel his blood beating in the raw places where Phil has crossed two or more blows. It’s overwhelming. He’s choking back sobs now, because….because….he doesn’t know why. It’s awesome to let go, to break down and empty his heart and soul of sadness, pain, angst, fear….it all just siphons away from him when Phil pushes him over that edge into tears. He loves it. Has been wanting this for what seems like months, even if it’s been less than two weeks. He tries to remember not to cuss when the belt bites particularly hard or Phil says something that just fucking kills him, but he’s not very good at it. The sharp sting of leather on his twitching hole is like nothing he’s ever felt before. It’s sort of shattering, almost suffocating in its intensity, and yet that bright hot flare of pain that lances into his asshole when Phil brings the tip of the belt down travels straight through his body to his cock, and he’s somehow managing to shout in agony and moan in ecstasy at the same damn time. He’s not even sure if he does it on purpose when, on the fourth page, he breaks down into mindless filth.

“Oh _fuck,_ oh god, oh SHIT! Sir please, it hurts so MUCH _ohhhfuckfuckfuckfuck…._ please stop, oh pl….”

Shit. Um, he means wait, he means….I didn’t mean to say that. Oh no. No, no, no, no. But it’s six in a row, and Phil growls and in his voice Clint can tell he _loves_ it when Clint’s body stiffens in shock and he cries out in pain and his fingers flex helplessly where he holds himself open for Phil to whip his tender asshole again, and again.

“God,” breathes Phil. “Your hole’s getting all red baby boy. Does it hurt?”

“Yes,” wails Clint.

“It looks like it. I’ll bet it going to feel even hotter and tighter than ever when I shove my cock in you, all swollen and burning.”

Clint makes an incoherent sound that is part terror but mostly need. It’s about then he realizes that he’s fighting it, trying not to break down, is because he doesn’t fucking want it to END. He’s positively _reveling_ in the hot slash of the leather on his skin, the dangerous purring growl in Phil’s voice, the stinging heat suffusing his asshole. He’s intoxicated. It’s not subspace, or not exactly anyway, because this isn’t really about that. It’s about feeding their hot sick dirty brutal twisted desires, the kind you never tell because people would think you were deficient, the kind you keep to yourself your whole life because people who love each other don’t DO those things to each other. Except they do. Love each other. And do those things. He can hardly believe it’s real. Remembers after the night he saw the roustabout and Eddie fucking against the trailer, and then a few nights later got his bare ass blistered for making out in the cat run, he’d dreamed of both, dreamed the huge, rough worker had come to his trailer, broken in while he slept, that he’d awakened to having his boxer shorts dragged down his hips, and in his subconscious his mentor and assailant had gotten confused and the roustabout had whipped him with his thick, heavy belt, while Clint begged and begged him to stop and tried to get away but the man was too strong, and in the dream the belt had hit him on his ass and his legs and between his cheeks and even slapped his balls, his cock, and he’d kept begging, all in vain, until at last the man had held him down and forced his huge cock into Clint’s ass, and Clint had waked up, sweating, gasping, shaking, his come soaking his shorts. At sixteen that had been really confusing and he’d tried not to think about it for a lot of years. Except now he’s not confused any more, and he LOVES this.

“Clint,” murmurs Phil, stopping him before he haltingly starts to read the next entry. His index finger strokes up the crease of the younger man’s ass, the pad of his fingertip brushing his swollen hole, making Clint keen and shiver. God, it stings for him to even touch it. “Stop fighting me. I’m going to keep going until we’re finished, no matter how hard you cry or beg, so you may as well let it happen and get what you need. I’m not stopping.”

“ _Ffuuuuuuuckk,”_  groans Clint. His eyes fly open. “No, wait! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to…”

“Hands. Now,” responds Phil ruthlessly.

“It _HURTS_ ,” cries Clint after the cruel bite of the strap leaves his hole clenching and burning _again_.

“Good,” hisses Phil, and heartlessly makes him read the next infraction. This time he’d cussed Tasha out and thrown the television remote across the room in a fit of pique because she wouldn’t let him touch himself after he’d woken up from a nap with a raging hard on and begged her to let him. Phil decides cussing at your lover, and a lady to boot (Clint snorts a little at Phil’s categorization of Tasha as a lady) warrants something a little more severe. The belt cracks across the backs of his legs. Phil kicks his feet apart and he makes a wordless sound of desperate negation, but Phil chuckles and snaps it against his inner thighs where the skin is soft and tender, and the sensations wracking Clint’s body are too much. He wails in hurt, his eyes burning, and a small sob escapes his lips.

“Good boy,” Phil whispers. “Give it to me, baby boy. Read the next one.”

“F…four,” chokes Clint, who no longer remembers if this is the sixth number four or the sixtieth, “I…I…I…said you were both horrible, mean people and you’d be sorry if I died of frustration and that I hated you both. M..master?” he pleads falteringly after he reads this one.

“Yes beautiful boy?” asks Phil gently.

“I….I didn’t mean it,” he whispers. How could he have said he hated them? They’re _everything._ Even if neither of them ever touched him again, they’d still be everything.  Phil chuckles a little.

“Of course you didn’t mean it, and we didn’t think you did. You were under extreme duress. Hush. That’s not what this is about, and you know it. I’m punishing you because we both want it. Do you need me to stop?”

“No!” cries Clint desperately. “No, please! You can’t stop, god, Phil….Master….please, it’s so good. I need…I need….”

“Oh, I know,” Phil assures him and then the four strokes come. Phil’s assurances have done what pain couldn’t, and the tears in his eyes spill over. It feels so goddamn good that he’s rubbing himself against the pillows at the same time that he starts to cry. It is NOT easy to read out loud coherently when you’re crying. It’s not too bad a first, because Clint’s only sniffling and leaking tears onto the blue and green bedspread and gasping a little.

“F…five,” he pants, “I…. _ohgod_ ….I tr…tried to…m…masturbate in the shower…. _Jesus, fuck_ ……wait! No, no, no, please Phil! Ohgod….okay……. _AAGH…._ god that hurts….ow, ow, ow, I’m sorry!....uh…in the shower….the first time you….let me take one….alone…..and….. _godgodgod…._ and you caught me.” He ducks his head and waits, but ok, that one had been SO hot and he’d even cried a little after. Panting, frantic, desperate in the hot steam of the shower, the water pouring down his body, his cock feeling like it was gonna erupt just from that, the groan he hadn’t been able to swallow when his hand closed around it, then Phil standing there with his arms crossed, looking reprovingly at him. He’d begged and begged Phil to let him, just this once, oh please Sir please I need to COME. But he hadn’t gotten to. Since he’s already reached the edge and he’s falling fast, the next five shattering cracks of the belt on his ass and legs wrench sobs from his throat.

It’s pretty hard to read after that. He tries really hard, he does. But he’s at the point where he doesn’t want anything but this, the hard steady spanking, the shock of pain then the slow warm slide into heat, suffusing his body, making him feel safe and cared for at the same time that it makes him so hard he wants to beg to come RIGHT NOW. Phil makes him do two more, choking out words between gulping sobs, but by the time he’s turned the page he’s too wrecked to see the words. When the notebook is picked up, he makes a whining sound of protest.

“Y…you promised,” he cries desolately.

“Oh, I’m not stopping,” Phil assures him. “I just think your effectiveness as a narrator of this little scenario has come into serious question. Page eight. One. Clint Barton was an ungrateful brat who refused to finish his dinner because he hadn’t been allowed to go up and sit on the roof.”

CRACK

Ohhh, he sighs to himself.

“Two. Clint Barton would not stop pestering his Master at work while he tried to catch up on a great deal of paperwork with his constant phone calls and texts attempting to seduce the Director of Operations, West Coast division.”

CRACK. CRACK.

“Oh god,” he cries, tears just _pouring_ down his face. “Please Sir! It….I….enough, please!”

“Three,” says Phil coolly, ignoring Clint’s babbling and continuing to read. Clint can’t even hear him anymore. This makes the first time Phil had used a belt on him look like fucking romper room.

“Please,” babbles Clint, and oh fuck oh shit oh god he loves this shit, loves feeling desperate for Phil to stop, pleading, begging, completely oblivious to his own sense of pride, nothing in the way of HAVING…getting what he wants, what he needs, the heat, the sweet agony, helpless, have to just take it, no choice, nothing he can do, suffer, cry….so FUCKING perfect. “Oh please Sir, _please_ don’t spank me anymore.”

“Horrible brat,” says Phil fondly, bringing the belt down on the backs of his thighs with gleeful cruelty. “What would you even do if I stopped?”

Clint hiccups a little, rubs his face hard against the comforter and looks over his shoulder at Phil, eyes shining with tears, lashes wet and clinging together, a quiver in his bottom lip and he flashes him an absurdly happy smile right in the middle of crying his eyes out.

“I’d…. _nnng_ ….cry harder,” he gasps out, then is forced to bury his face in the bedspread and howl, because Phil kicks his legs farther apart and smacks him as hard as he can on the tender skin there.

He’s only peripherally aware of what Phil’s voice is saying the rest of the time. His entire world is made up of the shattering feeling of the leather against his flesh, the heat, the burn, the pounding need in his brain and his dick. He’s absorbed in, consumed by the gorgeous heady pain, nothing NOTHING like anything Vespucci had done to him. Every vicious stroke, every word out of Phil’s mouth, no matter how savage he sounds (and by now he’s pretty fucking savage with what he’s doing to Clint), Clint hears the love behind every word, feels the caring and giving behind every blow. Sometimes he wonders if this level of cruelty is really what gets Phil off or if he’s doing it, going harder than he would on his own, because he understands how badly Clint wants it. He hasn’t asked.  He’s sobbing so hard he only barely registers is when he hears the soft splat of the notebook hitting the floor.  His head is cradled in his arms, his face hot with tears, his body quivering with need. Phil’s fingertips on his blistered skin make him whine, so Phil presses harder until he’s keening with it, squirming, but he’s also pushing back against Phil’s finger.

“Greedy slut,” chuckles Phil, and Clint whimpers when he takes his finger away, only to cry out in pain when it presses firmly against his hot, swollen asshole. “God, this is going to make you scream,” he says with great relish, which puts paid to Clint’s concern that he might only be doing it to meet the archer’s needs. When Phil reaches for the bottle of lube, Clint feels a fervent moment of gratitude that spit isn’t all he’ll be getting. When Phil’s index finger shoves into him, it flies out the window.

The raw crevices of his beaten hole being rubbed by Phil’s finger, in spite of the lubricant, throws his head back and wrenches a pained howl from his shuddering body.

“Hurttttssss,” he hisses through his clenched teeth. Phil leans over him so he can whisper, rough and mean, in Clint’s ear.

“Oh baby boy, not nearly as much as it’s going to. I’d thought of doing you dry, maybe a little spit If you’d been extra good, and let’s face it, when are you ever?” Clint shudders, because Phil’s killing him. He knows Phil doesn’t mean he’s really never good, because they both know that’s not true, but under circumstances like these, he’s been a very bad boy indeed and hasn’t the slightest interest in being good. Nope, not even a little. Bad is so much better. It just hurts a lot more. “Then I decided to have mercy on you just a little bit. It’s going to hurt quite enough without me having to go to any effort at all to add to it. God, you should _see_ the way your poor little hole looks around my finger. So swollen, so punished. You’ll get this much, you gorgeous thing, the slick to ease the friction, but you’ll take my cock in your tight, raw, sore little spanked asshole.” Clint turns into a babbling idiot. He’s never begged so hard in his life. He hopes Phil understands it’s because he’s scared but also because he desperately, hideously, unspeakably needs Phil to do this. Phil, being an observant sort of a person, cannot possibly have missed out on the fact that the harder Clint begs him not to do something, the more terribly he wants it.

“Ohgod,” he cries, “please please no. I can’t Sir, I’m so sorry I was bad, oh PLEASE don’t do it, don’t fuck me. I’m so sore, I’ll do anything, but please oh please don’t.”

“Little liar,” whispers Phil in his ear, giving his finger a particularly nasty twist and thrust and making Clint mewl helplessly into his forearm, shivering. “You’d _die_ if I didn’t. I love you begging me for mercy, baby boy, I do. But I’ll have honesty from your filthy mouth tonight or you’ll go to bed now, sore, hurting, _needing_. What do you want Clint? Make it truth.”

Lost in a haze of tears, Clint’s mouth falls open instinctively to protest. But he wrestles his fevered brain into submission and hides his face in his arms, thinking. Phil’s horribly good at throwing him for loops. Even though he’s dazed with pain and crippling lust, it only takes a couple of seconds for the light to come on. Phil’s not saying this to yank him out of his fantasy or throw him off-balance. Phil _needs_ him, just as much as he needs Phil. The last person to lay hands on Clint in a physical, sexual (though it wasn’t for Clint, he knows Vespucci was desperate for him to break so he could fuck him) and violent way had done so truly against the archer’s will. Phil would rather die than do anything to him like that. And he needs to know Clint knows it.

Phil adds more lube, but still only uses one finger. God, he’s so sore it feels like his fist. Clint rocks his hips gently, trying to absorb the pain, trying to catch his breath and stop bawling like a kid. Sensing his struggle, Phil stops moving his finger, leaving it in place but just gently pressing it against Clint’s prostate so that pleasure mingles into the pain enough to help him crank it down to soft whimpering and quiet tears. Jesus, he loves this man so fucking much. It’s hard though, hard to ask for what he really wants because it means SAYING OUT LOUD how warped and twisted Clint’s needs are. To play at it being non-consensual gives his a level of removal from responsibility. Phil gives him what he wants Clint to take, and Clint takes it whether he likes it or not. It’s his dreams come true. To peel back the pretend that makes it easier, to be baldly honest about how dark his desire is inside….that’s frightening. But it’s Phil Coulson. Savior, mentor, friend. Champion when others condemned Clint as a liability. Partner. Lover. Daddy. _Master._ In the end, Clint does the only thing he can.

“Oh Master,” he sighs, his voice tremulous and wet with tears and snot, because he’s been crying really fucking hard, “I need this. Need you. It hurts so fu…. _ungh…._ fucking bad. _Ohgod, there, yeah, right there._ Do…do I have to keep not cussin’, please Sir?”

Phil laughs, which makes Clint whimper again because when Phil laughs, his finger twitches.

“No love, you don’t have to keep not cursing.”

“Oh _fuck_ , thank you Sir. Please Sir, I don’t even know what to say. Want this so much. Hurts so bad but I love it. No, I…I need it. Need you to spank me so hard, make me cry. I don’t….I don’t know why it helps me but it does. _Ngh._ Goddamn Sir, your finger feels like a fuckin railroad spike. I’m so scared for you to fuck me, Master. God. So fuckin scared. It’s gonna…. _hnn_ …gonna hurt so much. But you gotta. Want you to. Want your cock in me, take me, hurt me, fuck me, don’t stop. I’ll cry some more, I know I will, but shit…oh please Master, I _want_ to. Can’t describe how it feels. The pain, the burn, it’s so GOOD. I don’t know why. It’s fucked up Sir, but I don’t care. Don’t give a damn what people’d think. If they’d say if was sick, it was wrong, that I’m messed up to want it. Fuck ‘em all. Need you fucking me, brutal, no mercy, no choice, I just gotta take it. Love that, not having a choice. Makes me feel so _owned._ Oh god, oh shit Master, that hurts, please… _nguh…_ Need it even more tonight. It’s been so long. Hated it, waiting, all that time, wanting you so bad. Hated that…fucker…being the last one to touch me, to hurt me. Need you to take me back, claim me, make me only yours. Oh please Master, Phil, please. I know it’s gonna hurt. Love screaming for you, begging for mercy, knowing I’m not gonna get it. Gotta have you. In me. Please. Oh please. Anything you want.  Just… _fuckfuckfuck…_ god please, I don’t want to wait anymore. Need it so bad. Please please please.”

“Christ,” says Phil through his teeth. “You’re too good to be true. When you beg for fun, it excites me. It’s a heady feeling, to have someone so strong beg you for mercy. But fucking hell, baby boy. When you beg for _real_ , when you beg for what you _want_ , it is so perfect I almost cannot bear it.”

“Love you,” whispers Clint, “need you Master. Please.”

He hears Phil’s zipper being pulled down, the click of the cap on the bottle of lube. Phil’s breath sucked in when he fists his cock, spreading it with slick. Hawkeye starts to shake, a fine trembling in all his muscles, because no matter how bad he wants this, he IS terrified. When the head of Phil’s cock touches his hole he keens through his teeth, choking on pain and fear. Oh god, it hurts just touching him.

“I can’t,” he pleads, voice high and thready. “I can’t. I want to, please. Master, help me.”

Phil’s hand strokes down the long line of his back.

“Shh,” he whispers. “It’s out of your hands, beautiful boy. I’ll take what I will of you, and you’ll give it because you’re mine. Don’t be afraid. Do you trust me?”

“Yesssss,” sighs Clint, and knotted muscles relax. Sometimes he’s afraid that his brain doesn’t understand the line between what it wants and what his body can take, panics when it comes down to that line and he’s facing something he’s never done before and hasn’t read the training manual for. In the end, it’s really as simple and letting go of the stick and letting Phil fly them where they’re going.

Phil’s fingers keep stroking, tracing the indentation of his spine, the other hand resting on his hip, thumb stroking, pressing against reddened, welted skin, making Clint whimper and arch back into his touch.

“Which will it be, little boy? A little bit at a time, or all at once?’ Clint gulps.

“How bout we just watch a movie instead?” he wavers hopefully. Phil, damn him, laughs. Which is not nice. It becomes not-nice in a good way when the laugh cuts abruptly short and Phil answers him, voice expressionless,

“No. Choose, or I will.”

Clint’s brain reels. A little at a time will make him feel the burn of his punished flesh as Phil slides in, but won’t hurt as much inside him. All at once will….well ok, all at once will just fucking hurt. But….they’ve already has sex once tonight. He takes a deep breath, knowing he’s going to say something he’s going to regret almost immediately, but he can’t help himself. He’s fucked up, and god help him, he doesn’t care.

“All at once,” he breathes, closing his eyes, turning his head to the side to lay his right cheek on the bedspread. Phil’s fingers brush his cheek, his temple, skim over his hair, then he grips Hawkeye firmly by both hips.

The sensation of Coulson’s cock spearing into him, forcing past raw, beaten flesh is like no pain he’s ever felt. It isn’t _worse,_ it’s just different. Doesn’t compare. It bows his spine and throws his head back while he howls in pain. God, god, fuck, FUCKING hell, it’s bad.  Phil’s in him up to his balls with one thrust, and then he stands very still, hardly even seeming to breathe.

“Ohgod,” he chants, voice muffled by tears, throat raw from yelling and crying and hurting, “Oh _fuck._ Motherfuck, Sir, it hurts. Oh god Master, it hurts so fuckin _much_ ….”

“Interesting,” says Phil. “It isn’t hurting me at all.”

Clint groans in the middle of trying not to hyperventilate. Why does Phil DO that shit to him? The things he says are brutal, and every word, every time Phil is mean and ruthless and hurting him, feels like a stroke against his aching dick. Phil gives him about a minute to get accustomed to the feeling. His hole feels like a tightly clenched ring of fire stretched around Phil’s cock. Typically, Phil gives him as long as he wants him to have, and not nearly as long as Clint thinks he needs. Nice and slow, so Clint can shiver and whine his way through every agonizing centimeter, Phil pulls back, almost all the way out, until just the tip of his cock is still inside him. The pause is horrible, because he knows damn well what Phil’s going to do next. He screws his eyes tight shut and waits, panting, tears squeezing out from under his lids.

“Please no please no please no please no,” he chants.

“Oh yes,” Phil assures him, and fucks hard into him again. He doesn’t pause anymore, but goes to it, fucking Clint hard and deep, while he nearly screams from the burn. It really only takes until about the fourth vicious slap of Phil’s hips against his punished ass and the brutal stretch of his abused hole before Clint’s brain is in orbit. The pain morphs into something wicked, dark, seductive and so, so good. He doesn’t stop hollering his head off or crying or shivering, but it’s so heady, so perfect, so exactly what he needs, that in the midst of all of that, what he’s saying changes completely.

“Fuck yes… _hnng_ ….oh god oh god…. _nnnh_ …Do it, sir. Fuck me. Jesus. Shit. Fuck, hurts so bad. Master, ohhh….it hurts so bad…”

“It’ll stop hurting when I stop fucking ,” Phil says heartlessly. Except Clint can hear the fierce grin in his voice.

“Don’t stop,” he pants, trying to breathe through the burn and the stretch and the overwhelming lust turning his blood to fire. “Oh please…. _nnngh…._ don’t….stop.”

Every sharp snap of Phil’s hips drives him a little into the soft pillows under his hips, pressing his starving cock into soft, smooth cotton. He ruts against the fabric shamelessly, bucking into Phil like he would take him, impossibly, deeper into his body. His hands are clenched in the bedspread so hard he keeps expecting to hear it rip. Phil’s hands slide up his sides to his shoulders, out to his biceps, and he taps, once, with his fingers. Clint lets go of the bedcover and puts his arms behind his back. Phil grips his wrists, holding him tightly, shoving his hands up cruelly, elbows bent, to his shoulder blades. He holds on with one hand, knowing Clint’s not going to try to pull away. Coulson’s other hand shoves the pillows out of the way. 

“Knees on the bed,” he snarls in Clint’s ear, shoving Clint’s pelvis forward with a hard jab of his cock. Carefully, so as not to dislodge their connection, Clint raises one knee and then the other, planting them on the edge of the bed, spreading his knees out until he’s at exactly the right height for Phil to keep pounding him like a jackhammer. Phil’s free hand slides up over quivering muscle sheened with sweat, traces the ridges standing out in Clint’s arm, his shoulder, ghosts up his throat and makes him groan, then his fingers slide through damp strands of the archer’s hair. He palms the curve of Clint’s skull gently for a second, then makes a fist, yanking his head to the side. Clint makes an incoherent sound of frantic need when Phil’s tongue swipes up the exposed line of his neck, then cries out in desperation when Phil’s teeth close hard on the tendon at the join of neck and shoulder.

“God!” he cries, eyes open, unseeing, “ _Ohhhhhh_ please. FUCK me Sir. Yes, shit, yes. Harder. PLEASE Sir, I need to COME, oh please please PLEASE!  Hurts, hurts, hurts….yes. Fuck. God, god, god….I gotta….Phil, PLEASE!”

“Not yet,” growls Phil through his teeth, his voice vibrating through muscle and tendon, rolling Clint’s eyes back into his skull.

“ _PLEASE,”_ Clint’s scream is mostly a whisper, drowning lust robbing his lungs of air. “I can’t…I _can’t_ ….ohhgod, so _fucking_ good Sir. PLEASE let me come Sir, I’m….oh you gotta, please….Master, it hurts and I need to….please say yes please say yes. Master, master, anything. Just please!”

“Go when I tell you to,” Phil hisses, letting go of Clint’s throat. Clint nods, frantic. Phil shoves his head forward roughly, and Clint bows it obediently in surrender, the beat in his blood pushing him closer and closer to just losing control. At this angle, Phil’s cock drags over his prostate with every merciless driving thrust. Phil bites him again then, this time grinding his teeth into the back of Clint’s neck, below his skull, and it is like the sudden completion of a circuit. His brain shorts out, and he’s so grateful to FEEL Phil snarling through his teeth, the word reverberating into Clint’s skull,

“ _Now!”_

Clint’s vision goes white, his hands clenching convulsively where Phil holds his wrists together, his whole body shuddering, as (oh FUCK yes) his orgasm rolls through his body like a wrecking crew, threatening to shake him apart. His howl of release is nothing sane. He can hardly hear Phil’s shout of triumph as he reaches his completion too, he is so swamped by his own pleasure. He can feel it though, the jerk and pulse, the wash of heat, as Phil comes inside him, gasping Clint’s name through his clenched teeth. It prolongs Clint’s pleasure, and he’s sobbing before it’s done, utterly wrecked. Is, in fact, too wrecked to remain upright. He sways, humming muzzily in his throat. Phil’s arms slip around him, supporting him, and lowers them both to the bed. The movement causes him to slip from Clint’s body. They both gasp, though Clint’s is threaded with a whine of pain.

“God,” he breathes.

“Sore?” Phil’s voice rumbles in his ear.

Clint whimpers, nuzzling his face into Phil’s neck, making soft little grunts and whispering silly things against the salt of Phil’s skin. They just lie there for a while, a ridiculous tangle of limbs, gasping and sweating and looking at each other and smiling sleepily. Clint’s deliciously sore all over. He aches inside and out, and is currently musing contentedly that he can feel his heart beat in the bite marks. Phil finally lifts a hand and cards his fingers through Clint’s hair.

“Missed you,” he murmurs, fingers tracing the lines of Clint’s face, smoothing away tear tracks. He doesn’t know why, but this small tenderness following so close on the heels of being so brutalized absolutely swamps him. Fresh tears well up in his eyes and he proceeds to fall very definitely to pieces in Phil’s arms. He doesn’t turn back into a sobbing mess, but he weeps silently, his body shaking, and grasps Phil so tightly that the other man makes an alarmed noise. “Whoa, hey, baby boy, it’s okay,” Phil exclaims, worried.

“No,” says Clint thickly, his face still mashed against Phil’s neck, which is now decidedly soggy.

“Then what’s wrong?” Phil sounds genuinely concerned now, trying to make Clint look at him, but Clint makes vehement negative noises and shakes his head.

“Nothing!”

“Ohhhkayyy,” says Phil carefully, speaking slowly and clearly, his hands gently petting Clint’s shoulder and back. “Then why did you say no when I said it was okay?”

Clint, who is too obliterated to cram two thoughts together very well, snorts with laughter, which serves to confuse Phil even further. Clint, who is also now hopped up on endorphins and way, way too much emotion and the back side of an orgasm so intense he’s pretty sure they felt it in the floor below, loses control of himself entirely when Phil demands that he explain himself at once, and dissolves into a fit of giggling. This is not very helpful at all, and irritates Phil, who grabs a handful of hair and _yanks_ Clint’s head back to glare at him reprovingly.

“Oh god,” fizzes Clint, tears still running down his face, only now they’re mostly because he’s laughing so hard. “I’m so sorry Sir. I….phew…I meant no, like as in you don’t gotta tell me it’s okay. I….okay, I’m gonna be able to breathe in a minute, Jesus. Damn. _Nothing’s_ wrong Sir.”

“You’re crying.”

“Didn’t seem to bother you before,” Clint says with a sly sideways grin.

“Do you really want me to spank you again this soon?”

“Oh god, I really don’t,” wheezes the archer, trying to muffle the snickers and not being very successful. At all.

“Explain,” says Phil. “Now.”

“Th….they were happy tears, Sir,” Clint hastens to say, because oh fuck him sideways, the thought of Phil spanking him again makes him want to start to bawl for real. Phil looks at him suspiciously for a few seconds, but the completely goofy (albeit quite damp) expression on Clint’s face seems to reassure him. “There was just so much inside me after….after THAT. It was awful and wonderful and it hurt so fucking much and I loved it and hated it and I’m not ever gonna be able to stop thinking about it, ever. So then it was done and all of that just sort of caved in on top of me at once, plus you know, endorphin whore here, and I feel so fuckin’ good right now even though oh my GOD I’m so sore. So it just had to…come out. I didn’t mean to worry you, honest Sir.” Phil chuckles quietly and hugs him.

“Wretch,” he says affectionately. “Never seen you do that before, you had me worried I’d hurt you too much there for a minute.”

“I never _have_ done it before,” says Clint. “Kind of weird for me too. I wasn’t even really sure what was going on, just all of a sudden I was crying again. But I feel so good, sort of clean inside.” He pulls back a little to look at Phil’s face. “I missed you too, Master. So much. I….well, I know this….thing….we have isn’t just about sex, because I like doing stuff with you…”

“I like doing things with you too, baby boy,” Phil smiles.

“But,” says Clint, squirming  little. “But oh god, Master….no matter what we’re doing, the….the wanting, it’s always there. All the time.”

“Yes,” says Phil softly, “for me, too.”

Clint doesn’t know if the wanting ever stops. He supposes probably when he’s dead, it will. Maybe not though. Maybe some things, love and sex and pain, for some really lucky people, burn so bright and so hot that nothing can stop them. Not all the minutes, hours and days of their lives down through the years. Not alien invasions, or transdimensional marauders, or supervillain masterminds. Not miles or continents or galaxies between them (not that Clint has any intention of visiting other galaxies….well, maybe Asgard….if Thor’s any indication, those people are freaks). Not Nick Fury’s plots and manipulations, not Tony Stark’s ego (speaking of galaxies). Nope, he thinks absently, blinking slowly, owlishly, slipping gently towards sleep. Want you forever, Phil. He’s almost out, but he dimly hears Phil whispering to him as he drifts off.

“I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life….and if God will it, I shall but love the better after death.”


	9. Part Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'd intended to write a fic wherein Clint does something for which Phil feels compelled to punish him. My problem was that I simply cannot reconcile my Clint Barton with actions like disrespect or deliberate disobedience or lying, My Clint is a definite smartass, and reckless, but he only smarts off to Phil in jest, not for real. He simply loves and respect him AND his collar to do something that shallow. Recklessly endangering himself, however, that I can buy. Then the scenario in which this endangerment takes place turned into one of those toy animals that grow to 100 times their size in water.
> 
> So, my point is that there is almost no smut in this chapter aside from a couple of short descriptions. I apologize to you who are reading this just for the porn, but my set-up is taking a long damn time!
> 
> also this section contains the non-consensual spanking of a (barely) minor teenaged boy (he's seventeen and it does him a world of good, but it is done against the boy's will.

He’s starting to think Fury’s doing it on purpose. Finally cleared for active duty, Hawkeye had returned to New York and the Avengers. There’s work being done on an old mansion in Manhattan, not too far from the Baxter Building, actually, that SHIELD and Stark are renovating to give all of them a place of their own to live. It’s a good idea, actually. Half of them scare the regular SHIELD agents, and the other half just get on everybody’s nerves. Clint’s readily able to admit he’s usually one of the latter. He gets bored really, really easily. If Fury doesn’t like his people pelted with blowgun darts (hey, he’d bought soft-tipped ones, and that’s what he uses….mostly) and spied on from the ceiling vents, he should arrange for more bad guys for Clint to shoot. It’s not like he has projects to keep him busy like Tony and Bruce, or umpty-million PR meetings and conferences and crap to get sent to like Natasha, because she’s nice to look at and isn’t able to personally level an entire city block when she’s pissed like Bruce and Thor and doesn’t have an ego the size of Canada (no wait, screw that, North America…..on second thought….the Western Hemisphere) like Stark, and doesn’t often develop a deer-in-the-headlights expression on her face like poor Steve when he gets flooded with too much modern crap at once (although they still subject him to it a lot because he’s so damn wholesome). So Fury keeps using her as their poster child, which Tasha hates. She comes home from every trip she takes that serves no purpose but to make the Avengers Initiative look like a good idea so mad she’s spitting nails. Granted, angry sex with Tasha (as long as it’s not him she’s angry at) is mind-blowingly good, but he doesn’t like how unhappy it makes her. This isn’t what she was trained for. Fury tries sending Clint along with her on a few of these publicity tour things, but after the first week of one of them, calls him home in disgrace. Clint, apparently, doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut, which reporters LOVE and which gives Fury apoplexy. Clint thinks it’s a little immature of Fury to yank him back to New York just because he’d told ONE reporter that the Colonel actually lost his eye in a brothel fight in Amsterdam in the 60’s while he was tripping on LSD and thought the hooker’s riding crop was a bayonet. It could be true…

So yeah, okay, getting them out of SHIELD HQ and into their own place, probably a good idea. Tony’s a little tired of everyone hanging around Stark tower too. It’s not really his home, more of a showplace, and it wasn’t meant to house a superhero team. It certainly wasn’t meant to contain the Hulk. It is true that Bruce is getting better and better at controlling the other guy, and there haven’t been more than a few minor incidents in the last couple of months, but big, green, virtually indestructible, and pissed are not good for architecture. The mansion is slated to have an entire basement wing that’s going to be (supposedly) Hulk-proof.

None of that is what gets to him. It’s that suddenly it seems like they’re needed all over the place, ALL THE TIME. Outbreak of rampaging elephants in Kenya? Send the Avengers. AIM goons stealing audio-visual equipment in Tokyo? Send the Avengers. People mysteriously turning blue in Frankfurt? Yep, let’s send the Avengers. Even though only a third of them are scientists and the blue people aren’t doing anything except being blue (not from asphyxia either, just turning a pleasant shade of cerulean). They aren’t shooting lasers out of their nostrils or mind controlling people into slaughtering their neighbors or exploding. Nope, just blue. By the time three months of this have gone by, Clint misses Phil so badly he thinks he might take Tasha up on that request to dart Fury in the ass. But Fury would probably take his blowgun, and that’s not an option. The last straw comes when they get a call that Hydra agents have been spotted in San Francisco skulking about in the warehouse district and are buying up an inordinate amount of fertilizer. Clint’s practically bouncing off walls when they get the deployment orders. Then when he calls Phil as they head for the Quinjet, it turns out Coulson’s in Japan on a mission. Fury’s definitely doing it on purpose. Probably even paid the Hydra assholes to surface while Phil’s out of town. Tasha squeezes his hand sympathetically when he hangs up.

“We’ll make time, Clint,” she promises (they’re usually on a private coms channel while they fly anyway because she likes to try to mess with him when he can’t do anything about it). “It’s just been really hectic lately. Hell, we better make time. You’re starting to look like somebody stole your bicycle and your puppy and spat in your milkshake all at the same time. It’s starting to get on my nerves.” He glares at her. She sighs.  “I’m not making fun of you. And I don’t blame you for feeling this way. It’s not easy to all of a sudden get everything you’ve ever wanted and then not long after be forced to live without half of it for a stupidly long time. If you don’t get a Phil fix soon though, it _is_ going to make you start to get shitty with me, and that won’t be okay.”

“I’m trying not to,” he says, and it just proves how right she is that he can’t even think of something sarcastic or flippant to say about it.

“And you’re pulling it off,” she says in as kind a tone of voice as Tasha ever gets. “We don’t have a problem, Clint. I’m just saying I recognize that you’re going to need to see him pretty soon, before it becomes one.”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “You’re probably right.”

 

 

“Jesus, Katniss,” says Tony through coms as they’re cleaning up the mess they’ve made of the Hydra agents’ warehouse later that afternoon. “Nice shootin’ and all, but don’t you think you got a little….spectacular, this time around?”

Tony’s staring down at the row of bad guys they’ve been forced to kill in order to stop them from blowing up an older neighborhood that runs strong to families with young children. Seven of them have arrows sticking out of them. Of the seven, three have the results of Hawkeye’s shooting protruding from an eye socket while the other four have been neatly shot through the throat. They’re clean kills, but they _are_ a little gruesome.

“Problem?” growls Clint, leaping lightly to the ground from the top of the dumpster he’s used as a stepping stool to get off the roof. Tony looks at him sideways but doesn’t say anything, which for Tony, is nothing short of a miracle. Everybody knows about Clint’s relationship with Phil, of course. Maybe Tony’s not quite as much of an asshole as he seems sometimes.

They go back home, and Clint starts spending a lot more time on the roof again. He refuses to let his sadness come between he and Natasha, so he tries to stay out of her hair when he’s feeling glum, which starts to be almost all the time. For someone with as little patience for self-pity as Tash has, she’s remarkably patient about it. He comes to her in the night, almost every night, shaking with need, and she holds him to her and uses her body to make him not think about it for a while, and he loves her for it, ridiculously (though he doesn’t say so, he’s not stupid). She doesn’t try to top him though, and even though his body craves it like a heroin addict, he doesn’t question this. She’s probably right. The things they do together are for fun, and let them be a little more raw and real with each other than they might be if they always sublimated their violent tendencies, but what Phil does to him is awfully close to being NEED. He feels like he’s missing an arm. She encourages him to top _her_ a lot more than usual, for which he’s grateful. It helps, a little. When he pounds himself into her body, her ass and shoulders hot against his hips and belly and chest from the thorough flogging he’s just given her (Tasha likes floggers a lot more than he does), the curses she’s hissing at him egging him on, he doesn’t think about Phil. When he comes home from having spent most of the day being interviewed by ARCHITECTS of all things about what  he wants in an archery range and what kind of revisions they can make to sniper stations they’re installing in the mansion, bemused and tired and a little annoyed and horribly, horribly sad, and she is waiting for him in the kitchen in her school uniform, bouncing (Tasha! _BOUNCING!_ ) because she’s made him dinner…he smiles and means it. Dinner, as it turns out, is macaroni and cheese, peanut butter sandwiches with marshmallow fluff, and waffles (Clint really likes waffles). It’s so fucking cute he doesn’t care he’s probably going to put himself into a diabetic coma from that much sugar in one meal (there are chocolate chip cookies too, made from refrigerated dough). When it turns out “Natalia’s” buttering him up because she has to tell him she cut class again to stand in like to buy tickets for a Ke$ha concert (Clint wouldn’t have thought Tasha even knew who Ke$ha was), he’s quite happy to spank her while she squirms on his lap until his dick’s so hard he could pound nails with it, and makes her take her fucking like a good little girl.

“I don’t deserve you,” he mutters into her hair later, before they fall asleep.

“True,” she says, and he can hear the smile in her voice, even though she’s facing away from him, his arm around her waist, he spectacular ass snugged up against his groin (he’s too sated to be stimulated by that just at the moment). He huffs out a laugh that makes one of her curls tumble down over her eyes. She squirms around in his arms until she’s facing him, and turns serious. “No really, Clint. You deserve to be happy, probably more than anybody else I know, because…..well, mostly I don’t give a shit about other people’s happiness, it’s none of my business and definitely not my problem. But you’ve done more for me than any other thousand people combined that I’ve ever met.”

“You calling me an obligation?” he jokes gently, because he’s feeling pretty okay right now. She slaps him upside his head. “Ow,” he complains good-naturedly.

“Yeah, cause you see how many times I fuck all my other obligations,” she says sarcastically. “Asshat. No, I just mean….why the fuck do you do this to me, Barton? I haven’t talked about my feelings this many times in the entire rest of my life as I have in the past year. Geez. Anyway, you’ve done stuff for me…risking your life and your job to bring me in rather than shoot me, because you saw something worth saving…you trusted me, had my back, changed my life, fixed a lot of what was broken about my past, restored my memories….are you getting uncomfortable yet, because I am…broke through walls I’d built so that I could really be with another person and not hold back….can I stop now?”

“Please,” he agrees wholeheartedly, because she’s embarrassing him.

“Thank God. Anyway, you’re a stupidly good person.”

“No I’m not,” he says uncomfortably.

“Why did you buy and WEAR that stupid coonskin cap in Gatlinburg, Barton?”

“People were making fun of Thor,” he protests.

“I rest my case. Shut up, you don’t get to argue. I know a lot of people, you meet a lot of them in my line of work. I have never met another person who really deserves to be happy more than you. Maybe Phil. And oh hey, it just so happens that you guys DO that for each other. I’m allowed to think it really sucks that you haven’t gotten to spend time together. “

“Thanks,” he says, voice again muffled by her hair.

“I’ll figure out a way for you guys to have some time together if I have to blow Fury,” she says grimly.

“I think I just threw up in my mouth,” he groans.

 

It turns out she’s not able to find the time before things go from shitty to untenable. Fury decides that SHIELD should go out of its way to promote a sense of cooperation with other agencies. Ok, perhaps this is good sense. The international espionage field is rife with distrust, backstabbing, second-guessing and nondisclosure. The CIA, FBI, NSA, MI6, Interpol, FSB, Mossad….etcetera ad nauseam, are almost so busy trying to stay on top of each other that they do close to half the bad guys’ work for them sometimes. Clint’s not opposed to the idea in _theory,_ but when Fury loans him to the CIA for a month, he’s furious. He refuses the assignment, but the Director won’t let him. He tries to quit. Phil calls.

“You need to do this, Clint,” he says gently.

“Sir,” he cries, tormented. “I haven’t seen you for four months! If I take this assignment, I’m going to be in Kosovo for at least another thirty days!”

“And I’ve arranged for you to have two weeks’ leave once you’re done,” Phil tells him. This brightens Clint’s day considerably for a minute, but then he sighs that people in Arkansas will probably just start turning Orange or something and it’ll get cancelled. “Hang in there, little boy,” says Phil sternly (although Clint can hear the sadness in his voice too and it makes him want to cry), “the threat to the ambassador’s son is very real. There have been two kidnapping attempts already this month. You are the best at what you do. No one will get past your watch. The boy’s seventeen. You and I both know what kinds of things could happen to him if his father’s enemies get their hands on him.”

Clint sighs. Yeah, he does.

“Dammit,” he grits out in frustration. “This is worse than convalescence!”

“Oh believe me, I agree,” Phil says fervently. They talk dirty to each other for a while, and Clint sobs Phil’s name when he comes, barely having to touch himself. They say goodbye, because Clint will not be able to call anyone while on this detail. He’s going to be a ghost. Daniel Alcorn….the Third, of course, will be introduced to his new pet sniper, but will probably not see Clint again after that. The introduction is going to be just so that if anything goes pear shaped, he’ll recognize the guy who tries to  get him out of danger and not try to fight him. Clint bids the rest of the team farewell glumly, and says goodbye to Tash both more passionately AND more miserably before boarding a plane for Eastern Europe.

Daniel Alcorn III is, on first meeting, an unmitigated asshole. The kid’s spoiled, smug, condescending…all things Clint hates with a passion. He’s been looked down on most of his life, for not having parents, for not having money, for not having an education. He despises snotty rich kids who wear their senses of entitlement like badges of honor. Of course, the Ambassador’s an asshole too, so at least the kid comes by it honest.

The first week Clint spends scrambling after the young fool, who does his level best at every opportunity to ditch his bodyguards and security detail. He thinks the danger is grossly exaggerated and that his father’s just trying to spoil his fun. Clint would think so too if he hadn’t already neutralized two would-be kidnappers from afar in this one week. The little prick doesn’t even know about them. His father doesn’t want him disturbed by the reality. Clint shakes his head and doesn’t say a word. The dad’s an asshole, but it is at least clear that he loves the little shit. He’s just not going about anything the smart way. Maybe if Danny knew how real the danger is, he’d be a little more careful.

During the second week, one of Danny’s bodyguards is killed by a would-be kidnapper. Danny’s in a bar when this happens and doesn’t see it. Clint wants him told, but he’s overruled again. And assigned to take the dead bodyguard’s place. He tries to be patient when he tells Alcorn II that he’s a sniper, not a bodyguard, but Alcorn won’t listen, he just calls his CIA contact and gets the guy to order Clint to comply. This is such bullshit. He wants to go home. Danny is the biggest brat on the face of the planet. He makes his bodyguards do all kinds of menial shit for him. Clint grits his teeth.  One night his royal highness rents a hotel room in the fanciest place in town. He makes the other bodyguard, a retired Special Forces guy named Spence who Clint likes well enough, stand outside in the hall and guard the door, while he imperiously orders Clint to come into the suite with him and wait on him. Clint, biting his tongue, follows the horrible little shit into the sumptuous suite and parks himself by the door, hands clasped in front of him, blank-faced behind his dark sunglasses. Well, he used to just wear sunglasses. These little beauties are courtesy of Tony, and come with a HUD including a range finder and targeting system similar to the one Stark uses in his helmet, only a little less fancy because there’s not much room for complex wiring and computer chips and crap…there are probably terms…in a pair of sunglasses. Clint doesn’t need them during the day, which is a little weird to most people…he uses them for sun protection, sure, or to be anonymous and vaguely menacing….but he mostly only uses their full function when it’s dark. He can see better than most people in the dark, but he’s not a cat. Or Daredevil. He’s wearing them now because he doesn’t think it’s a very good idea for Danny boy to be able to see the look in his eyes. Clint can do bland just fine, but his eyes have a tendency to go silver when he’s pissed, and people notice.

“Fix me a drink, Barton,” Danny says dismissively, waving his hand in the general direction of the wet bar. Clint lifts one eyebrow and doesn’t move. Danny doesn’t notice for a minute, he’s too busy opening and closing drawers, tossing junk out of his suitcases (yeah, he’s got three of them, for a fucking WEEKEND), and trying to find something good on the radio. This is Kosovo. There’s never anything good on the radio. Danny finally realizes his bodyguard hasn’t budged and turns on Clint, raising his voice. He probably thinks he sounds imperious, commanding. He sounds petulant and whiny.

“I SAID fix me a drink. Bourbon. Neat.”

“You’re too young to drink,” says Clint impassively.

“Not here, I’m not. Come on man, chop chop.”

Clint grinds his teeth together. He’s had it up to his eyeballs with this obnoxious little shit.

“Look kid, I ain’t your bartender, and I ain’t your maid. You want a drink, fix it yourself,” he growls tersely. He’s wondering if it would cause an international incident if he punched the kid in the mouth.

“Who do you think you are?” sneers the kid loftily. Clint wonders, not for the first time, if there’s a possibility the kid doesn’t actually realize who he’s talking to. As much as the Ambassador hides from his kid, it wouldn’t be all that surprising. “It’s your job to do what I want, you’re being paid very well for it, and I expect to be obeyed at once.”

Clint can’t help it. He laughs.

“Oh Jesus kid,” he says finally, taking off his sunglasses and wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “It’s my JOB to keep you safe, not do what you want. I’m not getting paid for this, there’s a guy I obey….and you’re not him.” He’s honestly so stunned at what happens next that his reflexes fail him, because there’s just no way he would ever have believed the dumbass would do something so insane. Daniel Alcroft the Third throws a temper tantrum. Clint’s torn between being vastly entertained and really annoyed until in his fit of rage, the red-faced, screaming boy stomps up to him. And slaps him. In the face. He’s really, really lucky Clint’s not wearing the glasses. It doesn’t hurt much. There’s not a lot of force behind it, and the kid has no idea how to hit. Still, there’s a coppery taste in his mouth, and Clint sees red.

Something in his brain just snaps. He has no excuse for what he does next. The stupid kid is standing there, staring at him, his face nearly purple with rage, his hand half drawn back as if he’s planning to actually hit Clint again, panting, mouth hanging open as though he’s almost as surprised as Clint is by what he’s done. It’s so easy to have the kid in an armlock it’s like falling off a log. Danny makes a kind of surprised urk sound, and Clint shoves him facedown over the back of the couch.  Danny yells in surprise and outrage. There’s a knock at the door, and Spence sticks his head in to find out what’s wrong. He takes in the scene in a split second and both his eyebrows shoot up almost to his hairline.

“Barton?” he asks. He sounds curious but not particularly disturbed.

“Nothing to see here, Spence,” says Clint with a ferocious grin. “Or hear either. In fact, I think it would be awesome if you went deaf for the next ten or fifteen minutes.” The hand that’s not holding Danny down by one arm twisted behind his back is unfastening his belt buckle. Spence looks at him, then at the yowling, protesting young man they’re here to protect, then at Clint again. His normally saturnine mouth slowly curves into a really nasty smile.

“Didn’t quite catch that,” he says slowly, and Clint’s almost sure he winks. “Must be something up with my hearing.”  And he shuts the door, leaving them alone.

“Shut your mouth, you horrible little shit,” snarls Clint at the shrilly protesting young man. He finishes unbuckling his belt and pulls it through the loops, twisting his wrist a couple of times to wrap it several times around his fist. The damn kid’s skinny as a rail, and though his clothes are stupidly expensive, he still has the young teenaged American boy’s mystifying penchant for wearing baggy pants that barely stay up on his hips. One sharp tug and they’re puddling around his ankles, which causes him to curse and spit angrily and buck against Clint’s hold. He’s just managing to piss the archer off more and more as he calls him increasingly insulting names. Clint doesn’t take much exception to asshole, bastard, motherfucker. It’s when the kid starts calling him gutter trash, ignorant, worthless stupid useless  low-class son of a whore….and it reminds Clint forcibly of nearly identical words he heard as a kid, from the other orphans, the nuns, social workers, the biological children of the foster parents they foisted him on a few times….and his remaining hold on his temper lets go with both hands and flees the scene. Up until this moment he’s been intending to leave the little prick with some of his dignity, but not now. He grabs the waistband of the kid’s lime green silk boxers (What the fuck even?) and yanks them down too. He pulls his arm back. Danny is still cursing and yelling at him, struggling ineffectually.

“Somebody shoulda done this to you a long time ago, you insufferable little bitch,” he hisses angrily, and brings his arm down. His belt slashes across the kid’s skinny ass and leaves behind a dark band of red. It connects with an earsplitting crack. Danny goes abruptly silent, his body stiffening in shock. “You’re rude,” Clint snarls.

CRACK

“selfish,”

CRACK

“spoiled,”

CRACK

“cruel,”

CRACK

“condescending,”

CRACK

“Insufferable…:

CRACK

Danny recovers his voice around the third stroke and starts howling like a storm siren, bucking and kicking and yowling like he’s being skinned alive.

“Oh suck it up, you big baby. You’re making an idiot out of yourself.” CRACK. “Every staff member your daddy assigns you despises you.” CRACK. “You’re a mean, hateful, ungrateful, STUPID little boy!” CRACK!

Danny bursts suddenly into tears, and goes limp as though he’s been shot. He bawls as though his heart is broken, and Clint stops laying into him, a little taken aback.

“I’m suh….suh…sorry!” wails Danny. “I’m SOOOO sorry!! Pl….please don’t hate me! Uh….uh….uh…EVERYbody hates me!”

“Well Jesus, kid….did you ever think about maybe being a little nicer to people?” he says, nonplussed.

“I duh…don’t know how,” sobs Danny.

Clint grows pretty uncomfortable having this conversation with the kid’s bright red, welted ass (Jesus, he’d really whaled on him, Fury’s going to go nuclear) and hauls him to his feet, awkwardly helping the kid pull his pants up. The soggy whimper when rough fabric touches beaten skin makes him feel like an asshole. He’s therefore stunned right out of his head when the kid turns to him once he’s decent and throws his arms around Clint, crying desperately into his chest. When Clint tries to pry him off, the kid holds on tighter and CLIMBS him, wrapping his skinny legs in their stupid baggy Versace jeans around Clint’s waist.  He staggers around to the front of the couch and collapses onto it, his lap full of a brokenhearted seventeen year old kid who is way too big for it. Completely at a loss, he pats the boy’s head awkwardly. He has no idea what he ought to be saying. He thinks about what Phil says, but he just can’t. That’s totally not the same thing. He’s so not cut out for this.

“Hey,” he says uncomfortably. “Hey, kid. Danny. It’s…it’s okay. It’s…um…everything’s gonna be fine.”

“You don’t hate me?” whispers the boy pitifully. Clint’s heart wrenches. Jesus Christ, what the fuck?

“No kid, I don’t hate you.”

“You’re the only person who doesn’t,” confesses Danny tremulously.

“Well, you do kinda treat everybody like shit,” says Clint cautiously.

“I….just don’t want them to know,” confesses Danny, his voice bleak. “If I’m n….nice to anybody….they might be able to….tuh…tell.”

Totally out of his depth, Clint puts his hand on the boy’s back and rubs gentle circles.

“Hey, come on now kiddo, stop crying. I’m sorry I hurt you. You’re okay.”

“No,” says Danny fiercely, squeezing Clint’s neck so tight he wheezes a little. “You should do it some more. You should beat me for hours. I’m horrible, and you’re wonderful and smart and beautiful and…”

Clint begin to get an uncomfortable feeling he knows what it is the kid’s worried people are going to be able to tell.

“I’m really not,” he says quickly.

“Yes you are,” insists Danny desperately.

“Okay, okay, I’m awesome. Are we okay here, dude?”

“Yes Sir,” whispers Danny.

Oh fuck. This is really, really not good.

“Don’t call me that,” he says awkwardly. “I work for you, remember?”

“God,” laments Danny woefully. “I was so HORRIBLE to you! How can you ever forgive me?”

“Hey, c’mon kid. Danny. I have. I do. It’s okay. We’re cool. You don’t have to pretend with me. Danny…” he wonders wildly if he’s doing the right thing but SOMEthing’s certainly eating the kid up inside and he’s pretty sure he knows what. “…Are you gay?”

Danny hides his face against Clint’s neck and nods. Clint bites his lip and feels so horribly out of his depth that he doesn’t have the slightest idea what he’s going to say.

“Hey….it’s cool. We’re good, kid. Could you just….dude, I’m having a really hard time talking to the top of your head…could you just….”

Flushing, Danny scrambles off his lap and perches nervously on the other end of the couch, looking like he’s about to bolt. He winces and makes a small pain noise when he sits down. Clint runs his hand over his face and through his hair.

“Jesus, Kid. Danny. I’m really sorry. I had no right to do that to you.”

Danny looks at him, panicky.

“It’s okay. I don’t mind….I…I deserved it. Just….don’t quit. Please? Everybody quits. Everybody leaves.”

Clint is so fucked. He can see Tasha’s face right now. She’d be smirking at him, sassy and mocking, the bitch, and she’d lean in close and whisper, “Oh look. A puppy.” Damn it.

“Hey look,” he says, as gently as he can. “I’m not quitting. I really am sorry I hurt you, Danny.”

Danny, who has been staring hard at his knees, looks suddenly up at Clint and straight into his eyes, and there is an expression on his face that startles the shit out of the archer.

“No,” murmurs Danny softly. “I don’t think you really are.”

All of a sudden the kid seems both just as vulnerable as he had a few seconds ago and also a fuckton more perceptive and insightful than he has any business being. Clint isn’t very good at being inscrutable.

“Well shit,” he says, and grins a little at the boy, who blushes. “Are you gonna tell your daddy on me if I say you’re right?”

“Fuck no,” says Danny disdainfully. “I hardly ever tell him anything. He doesn’t know me, or care to. He just throws babysitters at me. If he knew what I….who I….what I am, or want, he’d disown me.”

Privately, Clint doesn’t think that’s true, but it’s probably a talk for another night.

“Okay. Then you know, I’m not sorry. You deserved it, and you’re a lot nicer to be around now too.”

Danny blushes and stammers out another apology, which Clint brushes aside. He’s looking without letting the boy know he’s looking, and right now he wishes he knew whether the kid’s erection is from the spanking or from sitting on Clint’s lap, because those two reasons lead to two very, VERY different conversations.

“I’m not sorry either,” whispers Danny, staring at his hands as though they are very interesting. Ok then. That’s….actually a lot better than the other alternative.

The conversation is awkward. It isn’t that Clint’s embarrassed to talk about things like this, it’s that _Danny_ is, so it’s kind of one-sided and stilted at first. About halfway through, it takes an alarming turn when Danny looks up at Clint with shining eyes and tells him that he loves him.

“No you don’t,” says Clint, a little desperately, and more sharply than he’d intended. Danny looks hurt. “No listen kid, you may think that now, but you really don’t. I just did something to you that got you stirred up for the first time, and I also took the time to make you feel like I cared enough to discipline you and want you to be a better person, which your dad should have done a long time ago. It kind of excited you, and you’re transferring those feelings you’re having to me. I can’t be what you think you want me to be, Danny. For one thing, you’re underage, and I’m not a child molester. Hey, don’t get pissy, I’m not calling you a child…well, not really. I know you’re not. But a court would think so, and in my heart I’d know I wasn’t doing right by you. For another reason, I have an obligation I am neither willing nor able to set aside. I’m a SHIELD agent, Danny. Our government has me working this detail because there is a very real concern that some very bad people want to use you to get to your dad. He should have talked to you more about that, but it IS a real threat, believe me. When your dad’s tour here is done, you’ll go back to the United States and so will I. There’s a…group of people in New York who are my friends, my team, and we have some very special skills. Sometimes the world needs us, and that’s not something we can ignore, even though sometimes I’d really like to.”

Danny looks at him sharply and for the first time Clint sees him replaying news footage over in his head and connecting the dots.

“Oh my God,” the boy gasps a few seconds later. “You….you’re…”

“Ok yeah, nice to meet ya, but can we please just not make a thing out of it?”

Danny buries his face in his hands and moans in horror.

“Oh my GOD,” he repeats, sounding mortified. “I treated you like shit, like a servant. You SAVED THE WORLD and I treated you like one of my dad’s other paid whores.”

“Seriously,” says Clint, hunching his shoulders uncomfortably, “can you just….not do that? I’m a good shot, that’s all.” When Danny still refuses to look up, Clint sighs and stares up at the ceiling. “Dude, would it make you feel any less weird if I told you there’s a guy who regularly pulls my pants down and beats the crap out of me too?” Danny’s so startled by this that he lifts his head to stare incredulously at him.

“You’re shitting me!”

“Nope.”

“Is it….one of the other….”

Clint laughs.

“Really? No. One, if Banner got mad enough to want to punish me, he’d turn huge and green and break me. Two, Thor and Tony are so taken it’s ridiculous. Steve…well, Steve’s like this perfect boy scout, you know? Sometimes I wonder if it mortifies him to see himself naked, let alone another person. And Tasha…um. Hm. Well it’s not quite like that with her.”

“Holy shit,” breathes the wide-eyed teen, who is once again being pretty observant. “You’re SLEEPING with the BLACK WIDOW!”

“Keep your voice down, man. I wouldn’t put it past her to be listening in right now, from a continent and an ocean away. She could kill us both with a tea towel, and don’t forget it.”

“I’ll never tell anyone,” swears Danny. Clint believes him.

“So no, it’s not any of them. It’s a regular guy without any super abilities all, except to be a total badass and the smartest and bravest man I know. He and I….we have the kind of relationship I’ve been telling you a little about tonight. And it makes me very happy. If it’s something you want, then you deserve to be happy too, and you need to find that with someone who can give it to you. And you WILL find it, if you stop being a douche and start treating people like human beings.”

Danny frowns, and Clint asks what’s wrong.

“But,” says the boy, clearly confused. “But YOU s…spanked ME.”

“Yeah.”

“And….you said that this…man…he does it to YOU.”

“Still yeah.”

“But…that doesn’t make sense.”

“Sure it does. I’m a switch.”

“A what now?”

“I’m somebody who likes this kinky shit from both sides. I like to spank people, and I like to be spanked. Most people prefer one or the other, but a few people really like it from both sides, and that’s okay too.”

They talk for most of the night. Danny has a lot of questions, and to Clint’s very great relief, there are no further declarations of love. When it gets to the part of the conversation where Clint warns him of the dangers out there for newbies like him, he takes off his shirt and shows Danny the scars on his back. He’s pretty sure it’s an effective warning. Around six a.m. and change of shift, Spence sticks his head in the door to see if everybody’s still alive and okay.

“Yes, thank you Mr. Spence,” says Danny with a smile. “A little tired, but quite well. I hope you have a pleasant sleep, and I’ll see you tonight.”

Clint, after promising about a dozen times that they will talk more, manages to get out of there too and he and the old SEAL head for their own hotel after the daytime detail arrives.

“Who was that kid and what did you do with the brat prince?” Spence asks , awe in his voice.

“Behavioral recalibration,” he murmurs, chuckling to himself.

“What?”

“I hit him really hard on his ass,” Clint says, trying to keep a straight face. Spence barks out a harsh laugh.

“Oh Christ, poor kid,” he says, clapping Clint on the shoulder. “Good for you. Good for him too, apparently. He didn’t seem very upset about it.”

“Ah, he’s a good kid. Just mixed up, and spoiled, and doesn’t think he’s worth caring about. I think this detail’s gonna be a little easier from now on.”

And he thinks so, for several more days, until the knockout gas cannisters crash through the window of the hotel room (which Danny has gotten his father to let him keep a little longer because he really wants to learn everything Clint can tell him about BDSM and his own experiences, and which Clint knows damn well isn’t as secure as the Ambassador’s residence and that they shouldn’t be here but he feels sorry for the boy). Dimly, as he’s shouting for Danny to run, he hears a heavy thud outside the door, in the hallway, and has a second to hope Spence isn’t dead. Then everything goes dark.


	10. Part Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so here's some more plot-ridden, lengthy buildup before you get to the porn. This time, however, there IS porn, just not until the end. Sorry it's kinda long, I just didn't want to break it up any more. This chapter contains scenes of torture and violence. The torture is not sexual in nature.. Then there's Avengers flying to the rescue, and Clint is badly hurt. Needless to say, Phil isn't pleased. Danny's life takes a massive turn for the awesome, and I'm just really liking his character. I don't care for it much when writers put OC's in stories, but since Danny's not in a relationship with any of the main characters and thus doesn't screw with any canon, movieverse-wise or head-wise, I truly enjoyed developing him. I'd love to know if anybody else finds him appealing, because I'm considering continuing to have him pop in now and then.
> 
> The strain between Clint and Phil is resolved. This scene contains what is a consensual whipping, but since neither Clint nor Phil is happy about it, some might find it to be a little trigger-y. And then there is sex.
> 
> Please see disclaimer in chapter notes, and I'd love to get feedback on this one, since it's kind of departure from my usual, what with all the NOT sex

He’s heartily sick of waking up naked and tied to shit. At least this time he’s not hanging from the ceiling. He’s tied to a chair. With….actual rope. Keeping his eyes almost closed, he takes a few minutes to look around the room as best he can without moving. He can’t see behind him, of course, but he can see a good bit. It’s a plain, empty room with white walls and a cracked, stained linoleum floor. The chair he’s in is wooden, and not in very good shape. There’s a table against one wall, upon which he sees his clothes. Danny is still unconscious, tied to another chair on the other side of the room, though he is still wearing his clothes, minus shoes. Jesus, fucking amateurs. Well ok, he revises. They’d managed to take him, after all. They wouldn’t have if he’d been left on recon like he was supposed to have been. These guys aren’t especially talented, just fucking persistent. He sits still and listens for a long time, continuing to feign unconsciousness, to make sure he’s not being watched. He twitches a couple of times to see if seeming to approach wakefulness brings anybody running, but it doesn’t. Finally he risks opening his eyes and sitting up straight. Danny’s finally starting to groan and shift in his bonds.

“Danny,” says Clint urgently, in a low voice. He has to repeat it a few times before the boy finally answers. When he does, his voice is thready with panic.

“Wh…where are we?”

“Shh. I need you to listen to me very carefully. Can you do that? Do you remember how I told you that a good sub listens to their Dom and tries to obey them and make them happy? And how when things are right, that’s one of the best feelings in the world?”

“I…yes.” Good, The kid’s impulse had been to ask what the fuck that had to do with anything, but he’d responded to the reminder, and the fact that Clint has learned over the last few days that the boy is a natural submissive who has been acting out his whole life, just begging for someone to make him stop.

“Okay, I want you to remember that conversation, and how it made you feel. Danny, I’m going to do something awful to you, and I’m going to ask you in advance to forgive me. I need you to pretend I am that person for you, the one you want to obey and please, because I know that’s something you want, and it will make it easier for you to do exactly as I say and not ask questions. It isn’t fair to you, because we both know all the reasons it can’t be true, and it may make you feel really sad when it’s time to leave, but I am going to get us out of here, and you’re not s trained solider or agent. Can you understand why I’m asking this of you?”

“Yes Sir,” says Danny immediately. “It’s like the….headspace you talked about. It makes you feel safe and you want to please your Dom and so you try extra hard and it feels great. If you put me…in that place in my head…I won’t be as scared, because you’ll be….like my Dom, and like you said, that means it’s your job to take care of me, and I’ll believe that you will. It’s okay. I understand, and I think you’re right.”

“You’re one smart fucking kid,” says Clint admiringly. “And you are going to make some man incredibly happy one of these days. Okay, we don’t know what we’re up against, but I promise you this boy, I am meaner and tougher and deadlier than they are, and I am getting us out of here. Follow my lead, do EXACTLY as I say, no matter how scared you are, and we will make it out of here.”

“Yes Sir,” says Danny promptly. His voice is still shaky, but he doesn’t hesitate. Clint feels like an asshole, but the boy’s natural response is exactly what he needs from him right now.

“Okay. Now, I want you to freak out a little, okay? Start yelling for help, for somebody to come, to let you go, stuff like that. I need someone to come in here so I can see what that door’s made of and what’s out in the hall. They’ll probably come in and be horrible for a while, maybe film you or take pictures. They may ask you questions. I want you to act as scared and panicky as you can, and let their questions confuse you. If they hurt you, go ahead and answer them. If you can lie convincingly, go for it. If you’re not sure you can, tell them the truth. I plan to be out of here before any answers you have to give them can come back to bite us or be used against your dad. Listen carefully, Danny. I need you to follow my lead and do exactly as I say, no matter how scary it is or how much it upsets you. Even if they hurt me, got that?”

“But….yes Sir,” sighs Danny, closing his eyes and forcing his body to relax. He’s not a bad-looking kid, really. Shaggy, sorta emo dark brown hair, soft brown eyes, high straight cheekbones and a stubborn chin. He’s tall, a bit over six feet, and probably not done growing, if his still-gangly, skinny arms and legs are any indication. He’s very fair, his skin nearly translucent in places. Clint hopes he can get them both out in one piece.

“Good boy,” he says warmly, and Danny flushes, pleased. “Now, raise some hell for me.”

Danny is not only going to make someone an outstanding pet one day, he has serious potential as an asset as well, if the diplomatic life turns out not to be for him. He’s observant, smart, and he follows orders beautifully. The moment Clint speaks, Danny breaks out in shrill, frightened demands to know where he is, to go home. His voice quavers, but he demands that someone come at once, insists that he’s thirsty, that he be untied. Clint watches him admiringly. Until the sound of a key in the lock on the door makes Danny shut up, breathing hard.

Clint’s relief goes through the roof. The men who enter, two of them, both with guns (maybe they’re not totally stupid), are wearing masks covering their heads. This means it’s much likelier their goal is ransom, not murder. Danny starts babbling when they come in, repeating his earlier litany of pleas and demands. One of them backhands the boy casually across the face while the other sets up a video camera. Danny subsides into shocked silence, and cowers, which gives Clint a moment’s qualm about whether he’s up to this or not, but then he notices that Danny’s eyes are cold and angry. Well goddamn. The kid’s pretty good.

“You will tell us of your father’s daily schedule,” says one of the masked guys to Danny, who is managing a creditable snivel. “Also the names of his household and administrative staff.”

“I….what? I don’t know!” Danny whimpers. Privately, Clint thinks this answer is probably true. The Ambassador never tells his son anything about his work, and household staff’s names are not something a boy of his age and upbringing bothers to learn. He may know some of their FIRST names, but probably not all. The masked guy doing the questioning jerks his head at the one fiddling with the camera, and mutters something to him in Albanian. Clint only speaks a little Albanian, but it’s enough the know the first guy’s telling the second guy to use the lover to convince the kid. Wow, these guys’ intel is really bad. The second guy stomps over to Clint and punches him in the mouth. Danny stares at him, wide eyed and horrified. Clint shakes his head a little, both to clear it and to let the kid know it’s okay. The first one starts asking Danny the same question again after informing him that they will hurt his pretty new lover every time he refuses to answer. Clint laughs. He’s always had a really poor sense of self-preservation. It’s okay as long as the guy keeps hitting him. He’s been knocked around so many times in his life it’s not even a thing anymore. Danny gives them a couple of names (first names only, Clint was right) but he’s getting really distressed because he clearly doesn’t know much more and the guy’s getting really energetic. Clint’s left eye is swollen almost shut. This is okay actually, because he’s left handed and it’s NOT his targeting eye. When the guy pulls a knife, he decides he’s had enough. The dude leans in, breathing kind of heavy (Clint’s pretty sure he’s getting off on this) and drags the blade across the archer’s right pectoral, opening a thin line of red. It’s not very deep. Hurts like a bitch though. He grits his teeth and glares at the knife-wielder.

“I’m gonna ask you politely not to do that again,” he says through his teeth. The hood doesn’t do much to mask the smell of raw onions when the guy laughs in his face. “Ew, really? I’m pretty sure they have toothpaste in Kosovo. _Fuck._ Okay, I’m done. Danny, you sick of this joint?”

“Yes Sir,”

Clint headbutts the knife guy in the face, enjoying the crunchy sound when the man’s nose breaks. As he’s anticipated, the guy shoves him away as he staggers back, yelling. Clint helps with his feet and the chair topples. The wooden chair. Which is barely holding itself together to begin with. During the entire ‘let’s work the pretty gay lover over’ scene, he’s been working on the knot on his wrists, and it’s loose. The chair breaks, and as he bounces to his feet, the ropes binding his torso fall to the ground. Morons hadn’t even tied his feet, just his thighs and knees to the seat. Which is also broken. He whips the rope in his hands (it’s thoughtful when the bad guys provide you with extra weapons) around the throat of the guy who’s questioning Danny, cutting off his air and preventing him from yelling for help.  His other hand grabs the guy’s chin and he wrenches it to the left, the sharp pop of his neck breaking sounding loud in the small room, the acrid smell of urine burning Clint’s nostrils. He whirls to face the dude with the broken nose, and discovers to his delight that Danny has hurled himself, chair and all, onto the guy when he’d fallen to the ground holding onto his face and howling in pain, and that now they’re both sort of thrashing around, completely preventing the goon from getting up and going for help, or coming at Clint from behind. Danny’s crappy chair has broken too, but he’s still all tangled up in broken slats and ropes. Clint hauls Danny to his feet, leaving him to extricate himself from the debris, and kicks the downed kidnapper in the head. It silences him. He doesn’t know if the guy’s dead or not, and doesn’t really care. Dead would be better, but they probably don’t have a lot of time.

“Shoes,” he snaps at the kid, who obediently goes to fetch them from the table, while Clint takes the two downed kidnappers’ guns and dresses himself as fast as he can. That’s pretty fucking fast. They haven’t searched his clothes, another sloppy move, so the blades he keeps sewn into a seam of his jacket and the ones in the hidden pockets inside his boots are still there. He considers giving Danny a gun or a blade, but is pretty sure the kid doesn’t know how to use either, and if he’s armed and they’re caught, it will make it likelier that the kidnappers will kill him, even if it’s just by accident. He presses his finger to his lips for silence, which Danny obeys. Goddamn, this kid has potential. He goes to the door and listens, then cracks it open a hair and peers out. There’s a long hallway, with doors at either end, and two more along its length. It looks like an office building of some kind rather than a house. He doesn’t see anyone, so he eases out into the hall, back against a wall, crappy Malysh pistol at the ready. It’s loaded, at least. Five whole shots. Yippy fucking skippy. Not like Makarovs aren’t all over the place or anything. Not like the Soviets didn’t make plenty of guns that didn’t suck. The Malysh doesn’t even have SIGHTS.

The other two doors in the hall are empty offices. Good. He jerks his head in a come-ahead motion and Danny follows him, doing his best to be quiet and hug the wall like Clint. Clint wishes he had his bow. The kidnappers might have brought it, though it’s likelier that since it’s in a case that pretty much looks like an overnight case, they probably left it behind. It’s only Danny they really want, and they’re not very talented. Who the fuck buys christing MALYSH pistols? He checks the end door they’re closest to. Fuck. Warehouse. It’s not a very big one, but he hears voices, and he can’t tell how many. The other door opens into a front office type area, one where a receptionist and maybe some secretaries might have been stationed, not exactly a lobby, but not where the main workings of whatever this business used to be took place either. There are four goons in there, and they’re not wearing hoods. Of course not, they’re guards. The problem is that if Hawkeye can’t take them all out quickly, and they’re recaptured, the men will be aware their faces have been seen. That’s not good.  Fuck. He needs to get into the ceiling. He pulls Danny with him into one of the empty offices, hoping to get a minute to think before someone discovers what’s happened. This building’s a pile of shit. He’s not positive the ceiling will hold him, and he’s absolutely sure it won’t hold both him and the boy, and he seriously doubts the poor kid would have the first clue how to maneuver up there anyway, because he hasn’t had years of learning the difference between a spot that WILL support his weight and one that WON’T.

Well, he knows what he’s doing FIRST. He may not be a field agent anymore, but he still holds on to some of the stuff he used to do when he was, the habits, the ways you do things and ways you don’t. One thing Phil drilled into his brain over the years, one important mantra that all SHIELD’s agents are trained in….never, never, ever go in without a panic button. Ever. And he never does. His has had some modifications, of course, because Tony took one look at the old distress beacon/tracker and declared it complete shit (it wasn’t). The new one is less than half the size of the old one, which wasn’t much bigger than a nickel anyway, and disguised as a button. It slides over any of the real buttons on his clothes he wishes, typically a pocket since he doesn’t open and close his shirt pockets often. Or ever. He leans against the door, taps the breast pocket of his shirt, and tips his head back to think. Thor’s fast. He’s crazy fast. But he doesn’t do tech and thus can’t locate Clint’s tracker. Tony’ll have to come with him. They’re the only ones who can make it here with any hope of helping in time. Still gonna take a few hours. Goddamn it. He’d be out and away by now if he was on his own. A handler would order him to leave the boy and get out, because clearly the kidnappers don’t plan on killing Danny, and that will give Clint time to make a plan, and to wait for Tony and Thor, then go back in and rescue Danny. He knows he should do this. He just can’t. The kidnappers may not kill the kid, but there are plenty of things they CAN do to him, and probably will, to make him pay for the deaths of two of their own. The only thing he can think of is to just try to stall for time. New York to Kosovo, at Mach 2 or 3, he’s still looking at a few hours. He’s not exactly sure how fast Iron Man is, but it’s better than Mach 2, because Tony routinely races F-15’s for fun, and wins. Not to mention he comes up with a new suit about once a month it seems like, or at least new modifications. Privately he thinks Tony ought to start a school for hyperactive genius kids with ADHD, and between them they’d probably make every other super hero in the world obsolete inside of five years. Less, probably. Okay. So, the front office, that’s his best bet. Four against one isn’t the worst odds he’s ever faced. They’re the worst odds he’s ever faced without his bow, but he’s not going to think about that right now.

“Okay. Danny, here’s what we’re going to do,” he whispers. “We’re going to go out through that front office. I’ve contacted Stark, and help is on the way. I just don’t think we can afford to wait for them. I want you to stay behind me. When I go through the door, you get the fuck down on the ground. Do you remember the big reception desk about twelve feet in front of the door? Yeah? Good. I want you to stay as low as you can, crawl to it, get under it, and wait until the shooting stops, okay? If anything happens to me….no, shut up, listen…what did I tell you, Danny? You have to obey everything I say no matter how hard it is. If anything happens to me, and they take you, you remember that they don’t want to kill you. They want something from your dad…probably money, but maybe something else…and if they kill you, they won’t get it. It’ll be bad, kiddo, I won’t lie to you. But you hang on, and you remember that help is coming. When they get here…it’ll be Iron Man and Thor, okay? They’re the fastest, and they’ll come. I promise. When they come, you just start yelling this, okay? You listening? You just keep hollering that Clint and Tasha punched Tony’s lights out the night of Jane’s spaghetti dinner. Got that? Repeat it to me.”

Danny does, though he looks confused.

“Good. Things might get kind of hairy when they get here. That way they’re going to know you’re not one of the bad guys in the middle of everything. It’s something a stranger wouldn’t know, and they’re both going to know what it means. They’ll save you. Hey man, don’t look at me like that. I’m not planning on going anywhere. But we need the contingency plan, okay? Good. Okay then, the longer we wait, the more likely it is that we get discovered. Be quiet, do as I say, follow me,” he says softly, and slips out the door and down the hall.

He hits the front lobby door running, dive-rolling into the room and squeezing off three shots in the direction of one of the kidnappers. Stupid Soviet piece of shit. Three shots to be sure of a hit? Embarrassing.  The guy goes down though, and Clint comes to his feet behind a cruddy bookshelf next to which the second kidnapper stands gaping, too startled to act yet. Clint gut stabs the idiot, taking a cross-body shot at the third, who is less startled and going for his gun.  Fortunately, under ten feet is about the pistol’s effective range and Clint’s almost as good with a gun as he is with a bow. Not quite, but still. He supposes the Malysh is better than a Skyy. He’d known a guy who had one a few years back. The sights had kept falling off. At least the Malysh came this way. Three down. They’re actually gonna fuckin’ make it. An arm snakes around his neck from behind (see, this is another reason he likes bows, they don’t make him half deaf when he fires them) and squeezes. It’s possibly the worst headlock he’s ever been a part of. He grins, introduces the guy’s face to the back of his head, flips the asshole over his back, slamming him to the ground. He follows him down and finishes him with one of Tasha’s favorites, the elbow to the throat. Spinning on his heel, he aims for the reception desk. His ears are ringing from the gunshots, so he doesn’t even try to say anything. He’ll either be too quiet for Danny to hear him or yell way too loud. The men down at the other end of the hall in the attached warehouse will have heard the shots, but it’s taken him all of about ten seconds to clear this room, and they’re getting the fuck out. Danny’s huddled behind the reception desk as ordered, the whites of his eyes showing stark against the gloom of this office. Clint claps him on the shoulder and they get up to get the fuck out of here. The hallway door is opening behind them when they hit the front door, but Clint doesn’t look back.

“Run,” he urges Danny, hoping the boy can hear him, because he still can’t hear himself very well. It pisses him off when guys on all those cop shows and stuff empty seventeen mags into a gang of thugs in a closed room and then carry on a normal conversation after that. You can’t hear for shit. Even once you can, your ears ring for at least a couple of hours. They hit the double doors in front of the building at a run, slamming them open so that they smack against the brick of the building, and careen out into the night.

Where they are surrounded by eight guys pointing guns at them. Figures a couple of these guys are sporting Makarovs. Shit. Shit. Shit. He looks at Danny, who is standing there looking like he’s not breathing, his face pale, eyes stark and black and bleak in the night.

“Kid,” he says urgently as the goons disarm him. Danny looks at him, expression hopeless. Clint, who had to study Danny’s personal info on the way to Kosovo, knows that the boy speaks French. Clint doesn’t speak as many languages as Natasha, but he knows several, and there were these Cajun sisters in the circus who….well. “Aide va venir. Comprends? Ne pas abandonnez l’espoir. Daniel? Vouz m’entendez?” ( _Help is coming. Understand? Don’t give up hope. Danny? You hear me?)_

Danny starts and looks at him like he’s grown a second head, because Clint’s done his best to be not a lot more than hired muscle and a gun, aside from the….well….beating the kid’s ass and giving him advice on alternative lifestyle choices. Playing a little dumber than he is has become such an ingrained habit for the archer that he does it most of the time. It never hurts for people to underestimate you. But as the butt of a pistol glances hard off Clint’s skull and hard hands pull them apart, he sees Danny nod.

 

At least he’s not fucking naked this time. That’s an improvement. His head hurts like a bitch. That’s _not_ an improvement. Neither are the handcuffs. He’s sitting in a much sturdier chair, beside a heavy butcher block table with steel legs which are bolted to the floor. Damn, they’re learning. His hands are cuffed to one of the legs.  He has no idea how much time has passed. He is getting really tired of this shit. What the fuck is he doing here anyway? He should be in San Francisco where he belongs. Fucking Fury. Again. He hears a soft groan and turns his head in the direction it comes from. Apparently he has a damn concussion to add to tonight’s joy and happiness, because his vision goes grey around the edges when he turns his head too fast. Awesome. There’s someone lying on the floor in a corner of the room.

It’s Danny. The kid’s been roughed up pretty good. Clint closes his bad eye so he can see a little clearer. The swelling keeps fucking with his depth perception. The boy has been smacked around, there’s congealing blood under his nose and at a corner of his mouth, and both his eyes a little puffy, but some of that may be from crying. His shirt is kind of rucked up under his arms and Clint can see darkening bruises on his ribs.

“Danny,” he whispers. Danny sniffles loudly, sucks in a breath, drags his face across his arm and looks at Clint. He’s still crying, but he’s trying not to show it. “You okay, kiddo?”

“I think maybe being beaten up by kidnappers qualifies me to not be called kiddo anymore,” the boy says thickly. In light of his ability for humor at a moment like this when he’s clearly terrified and hurting, Clint agrees.

“Sorry man. You’re absolutely right. Do you know how long I’ve been asleep? Gotta tell you, asking abused minors that question was not something I expected to be repeating this soon, but what the fuck.”

While he looks mystified at the archer’s seemingly nonsensical exposition, Danny answers promptly. He’s still in the right mindset, so that’s good.

“Almost two hours, Sir,” he says. “I’m not sure how long ago they left, but one of them told the others they had to stop smacking me around because it was two and they had to meet some guy named Milos at three. So they left. Maybe half an hour ago. And I know it was around eleven when they took us in the first place because that stupid Albanian reality show comes on every night at eleven….and I could hear the theme song playing on the television when I passed out from the gas.”

“Dude,” says Clint feelingly, “if you ever decide you want to be a spy, I have got someone you need to meet. That’s great. Okay….that means we still gotta hang in here for at least two more hours, maybe closer to three, depending.”

“They took a video of me,” whispers Danny. “I tried, Sir….I tried not to cry. I know they’re sending it to my family. But they broke my finger. I couldn’t….couldn’t help it.” He covers his face with his hands and Clint sees that his right ring finger sticks out at an awkward angle.

“Hey,” he says soothingly, “Don’t sweat it, dude. Nobody holds up under torture without making a sound.”

“I bet you do,” comes Danny’s muffled voice. Clint laughs.

“I’m a hard headed son of a bitch,” he says self-deprecatingly, “and I hold out longer than I probably ought to. Makes em more determined. But remember those scars on my back?”

“Yeah,” says the voice, sounding interested, but Danny still doesn’t look up.

“The guy who gave me those used stuff I usually like, stuff my...Phil…uses on me even, although his stuff was a lot harsher on a guy’s body. He beat me for close to an hour, until I was bleeding all down my back and my ass and my legs, and you’re fucking right I made noise. I screamed, Danny, as loud as I could, until I lost my voice. I cried. It hurt so fuckin’ bad and made me feel so weak and scared. Just because you yell or scream or cry doesn’t make you weak, and it doesn’t mean the other person has broken you. As long as you stay YOU on the inside, you aren’t broken. I’m not saying they can’t break you, Danny. Everybody breaks eventually. Or everybody CAN be broken, I guess. You just do your best in a shitty situation. Hell, sometimes the yelling or crying makes it a little easier to take. Pain’s easier if you let it out, and that’s true if it’s physical or emotional.”

Now Danny does look up, and smiles a little.

“I didn’t tell them who you are,” he says softly. “They asked a lot. I told them….I’m sorry, Sir. I told them you’re my lover.”

“You did?” Clint’s startled.

“Yeah, please don’t be mad. I heard them say in that first room that they’d get me to talk by working on my lover, so I thought I’d just go with that. Are you mad?”

“Mad? Danny, my man, you’re fuckin’ amazing.”

“I….am?”

“Shit yes. If you’d told them my name, they’d probably have killed me on the spot in hopes that my team isn’t looking for me yet, or decided to ransom ME as well, and I’d make a pretty valuable hostage. If you hadn’t told them my name, but had shared even that I was your bodyguard, they’d have probably separated us, or else just killed me for that also. They think keeping us together will make us weaker, because they’ll use our ‘relationship’ against us. That was really smart.”

Danny gives him a shy smile, and lays his head back down. Clint’s sure the kid’s tired. It’s late, and he’s been running on fear and fumes for a while now. With any luck, nobody will come in for a while, and he can rest a little. Clint studies the handcuffs, the table leg. The cuffs are good ones, unfortunately. They’re not too tight, but he’ll never fit his hands through them. Clint’s hands are agile and deft and sensitive and graceful, but he also has actual muscles in them, and muscle doesn’t squash very easily. The bolts on the floor are heavy duty lag bolts, screwed straight into the slab floor. Where it connects to the table, there’s more promise. It’s a sturdy table, but there are only two bolts in the leg, and they’re square. With enough time he may be able to loosen them. He starts on the first one. He has strong fingers and a sure grip. It’s not going to be easy though, and the corners of the bolt dig into his fingertips painfully.

Turns out he doesn’t have enough time anyway. The door opens abruptly, and two men stride into the room. They are, as the first kidnappers, wearing hoods. Well, the guys whose faces he really got a good look at are dead, so maybe they still figure on keeping them alive. For now, anyway.  One of them hauls Danny into a sitting position by his hair. Danny grunts in pain but doesn’t speak or cry out. The kidnapper has a very sharp knife pressed against Danny’s cheek, the point resting just below his eye, and he stares unflinchingly into Clint’s eyes. The second guy holds his gun trained on Clint as he approaches.

“If you try to do anything…unfortunate….I am afraid your young pet there is going to find himself short an eye. We do plan to return him to his father once we get what we want. We don’t have to return him in one piece.” Clint stares at him impassively. It’s silly to converse with kidnappers. Nobody in their right mind, or at least possessing half a one, thinks kidnapping is a great way to make money, so talking to them more than is necessary is pretty much an exercise in futility. The man uncuffs Clint’s wrists from the table leg. God, he’s not even really careful about it, counting on his gun and threats against Danny to keep Clint cooperative. The gun doesn’t impress him. He’d have it turned on the asshole in two seconds. The threat to Danny, however, is an effective one. He cooperates. The goon places Clint’s hands flat on top of the table, which is sort of odd, but whatever. He’s tersely ordered to keep them there. The man holding Danny strokes the blade down the kid’s cheek.

“Now then, little prince,” he says coolly, “I’m going to ask you some more questions. I’d like you to answer them truthfully and honestly, because now that your sugar daddy is awake, there are all kinds of new ways to make you feel….cooperative.”

There’s no warning at all. Clint’s staring into Danny’s eyes, willing him to at least pretend to cooperate. It’s not that he’s afraid of pain, it’s just that he doesn’t want them to hurt the BOY any more. He senses a movement from the man standing over his right shoulder, but it doesn’t register as anything more than him shifting his weight, when his right hand suddenly explodes in nauseating pain. It bows his spine and wrenches an agonized howl from his throat. Panting, suddenly slick with sick sweat, he looks at his hand. There’s a combat knife driven all the way through his right hand, pinning it to the table. He can’t do anything but shudder and haul in harsh, gasping breaths, biting his lips until they bleed so he doesn’t keep screaming. The pain is monstrous. His hands. God, not his hands. Anything else. He chokes, swallows bile and blood from his bitten lips. The fingers on his right hand (oh please, please don’t hurt my left, he thinks) are cold, and the blood seeping out feels hotter than it should, almost burns. He can dimly hear Danny crying and begging them not to hurt him, and Clint tries to see what they’re doing to him, but then realizes Danny’s begging them not to hurt Clint anymore.

They start asking questions, and Danny answers them all. Some of them are nonsense, like what kind of wine his father drinks and how old Danny was when they first came here. Probably meant to confuse the kid, give him easy questions he doesn’t mind answering, putting him in the mindset to just keep answering everything they ask that easily. Some of the questions are more pointed. What kind of car they have, what hours Mr. Alcorn is typically at the embassy, how many people staff the residence, what kinds of jobs they do, things about the layout of the house, where Danny goes to school (he doesn’t, he graduated a year early, is starting college as soon as his family returns to the United States), where his mother shops and for what. Danny answers every question slowly, haltingly, pausing a lot to beg to be let go, for Mal’s hand to be bandaged (Clint supposes he must be Mal. He’d told Danny of his secret allegiance to the Firefly fandom. He’s definitely been called worse). All in all, the kid makes every question take a lot longer than it has to. He manages to stop beating around the bush just in time with every question except one, and then the guy asking the question cuts him, just a little, down the side of his cheek. While Danny’s making a high whine of pain in his chest, the guy behind Clint reaches out casually and wiggles the knife a little. Clint sees him coming this time and doesn’t scream, but he sucks air harshly through his nose and grits his teeth til he thinks they may shatter. Still, all in all, the boy does a remarkable job of dragging things out. Early on in the interrogation, Clint chalks it up to real terror making him babble and plead and struggle to remember, but after the third time Danny tells the man something Clint knows to be an out and out lie, he admits to himself that Danny’s buying time. Balls of steel, this spoiled, arrogant little rich kid has turned out to have! He thinks it can’t be much longer. They’re close, they must be.

Eventually though, the questioning is over, and the man beside Danny hauls him to his feet.

“Well done, little prince,” he purrs in his oily voice. “Was that so hard? You’ve done well, and you deserve a little reward, eh? A bit of something to remember us by, so to speak? Not to mention I’m in the mood for a bit of a reward myself…”

And he shoves Danny face first over the table where Clint’s hand is pinned in a puddle of blood, yanking the young man’s pants down. The guy behind Clint moves so he can get a better view of the proceedings. No, thinks Clint, a red haze descending over his mind. Not like this. Not his first time. No. Not just no, but FUCK no.

“He’s not a very good lay,” he says, hoping his voice only betrays the pain he’s in. “I’m only wasting time with him cause his old man’s loaded and the kid doesn’t want daddy to know he’s a faggot.”

“Interesting. And a nice try, Mr. Reynolds.” (really? Danny’d gone for the WHOLE name? It’s a good thing Albanian kidnappers apparently don’t watch SyFy. Or Fox. Or the Science channel.) “I’m the sort of man who likes to find these things out for himself though.”

Danny is trembling so hard Clint’s sure he’d fall down if he wasn’t bent over the table. His head is turned to the side, facing Clint, his wide brown eyes stricken with terror. He doesn’t say anything, just stares at Clint, who can’t tell if the kid is pleading with him for help, or trying to focus on Clint’s face to help him get through it. The boy may accept that he’s not in love with his bodyguard, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t find him attractive.

“If you lay a hand on him this way, I will kill you personally,” he hisses to the kidnapper, who is fumbling with his belt buckle. The guy looks up at his words, and guffaws rudely.

“Doesn’t look like you’re in much of a position to do anything,” he says snidely, and goes back to unfastening. Danny’s making a tiny whimpering noise now. The red haze swamps Hawkeye’s brain, and he can’t do it. He can’t sit here and watch this courageous, clever, misunderstood, lonely, remarkable young man be raped in front of him. He can’t. He’s on his feet and has the combat knife pulled free of the table and his hand in the blink of an eye. Even if he didn’t need to be fast, he’d have done it this way, because he wouldn’t have been able to go through with it if he’d had to pull it out slow. The knife is buried to the hilt in the would-be rapist’s throat in the next blink, while he lashes out with his foot and takes out the other guard’s kneecap. He collapses, holding his leg and shrieking, when it gives.

“Under the table,” he snaps at Danny as the door bursts open and several more goons burst in. Jesus, how many of these guys are there anyway? He’s killed or put out of commission eight of them now! Danny obeys instantly, bless him, and Clint can fight without worrying about stepping on him. He’s fighting for his life and he knows it. He sinks the blade into soft flesh and someone screams. He kicks and slashes and stabs and punches and ducks and spins and dodges…and he hurts them, some of them a lot, but there are too many. They overwhelm him eventually. Someone kicks him in the kidneys and he drops like a rock, mouth working as he desperately tries to suck in a breath. His bleeding hand is stepped on and he growls in pain. Another foot connects with his ribs, rendering him even more breathless. He’s hauled to his feet and they hold him there, arms behind his back, pulled up so far towards his shoulders he’s pretty sure something tears. Fuck. Hands, now his arms…they may as well kill him. If he can’t shoot his bow, what’s the point? Oh Phil, he thinks miserably, I’m so sorry.

“Gonna pay for that, asshole,” one of them sneers. Clint slants his eyes over at the guy.

“Nobody touches him,” Clint snarls. “You want somebody to play with, prove what big strong men you are, you play with me.”

“Oh, we’ll play,” the good assures him, and then he goes to work. He beats Clint with his fists, steadily and methodically, splitting his lip, blacking the other eye, probably fracturing his nose again because blood positively fountains out of it. He slams meaty fists in to Clint’s stomach over and over again, until Clint is sick and dizzy and really wants to throw up. He takes it for a while, buying still more time, until he’s pretty sure he hears what sounds a little bit like a sonic boom from somewhere outside, far overhead. He decides pretty sure has to be enough, because he’s not sure he can take much more of this. He lets the guys holding his arms bear all his weight, picks his feet up off the floor, and slams both his boots into the face of the man pounding him to mush. Unfortunately, the guys holding him let go, and he falls. Something heavy and hard connects with the side of his head. A boot, he’ pretty sure. Fuck, graying out again. Come on, Stark, that better be you, he thinks, struggling to focus. Another foot plows into his stomach and he curls in on the pain, mentally trying to bully his brain into staying conscious. The lights flicker, and thunder rolls. Oh yes, he sighs. Thor. The door slams open again, and a very large, very angry demigod fills the doorway. In the chaos that is half a dozen kidnappers trying frantically to flee the room, caroming off each other and the walls and Thor’s fists, someone boots Clint in the head again, and he loses his fight with oblivion.

 

The next time he wakes up, he’s pretty sure he’s not tied to a chair. He’s sort of restrained though, which he can’t figure out at first, then as awareness seeps in, he sees that he’s in a hospital bed and that one of his hands is heavily bandaged while the other one is covered with surgical tape holding down an IV. His vision stays blurry for a few more seconds, then he becomes aware that he’s not alone in the room. He frowns, then squints, trying to see who it is. His face and eyes are still swollen, though it kind of feels like not as bad as it was. The faint scent of leather and cedar and spice drifts gently into his nostrils and his vision abruptly comes into focus.

Phil. Phil is sitting in a chair next to his bed, looking haggard and tired and actually rumpled…can that be possible? It’s true though. He’s staring fiercely at Clint’s face as he wakes up. When he can tell Clint sees him, he gets up and pulls his chair closer to the bed, sitting down on the edge of the seat. He lays the palm of his hand on Hawkeye’s chest, over his heart.

“You’re here,” Clint croaks hoarsely. His throat really hurts.

“They just took the tube out yesterday,” murmurs Phil, bringing a Styrofoam cup with a bendy straw in it close, and letting Clint take a couple of sips of water. It feels heavenly on his throat.

“You’re here,” he says again, more successfully this time.

“Of course,” says Phil simply, moving his hand from Clint’s chest to his face, where his fingers gently trace the planes of cheek and temple and forehead. It doesn’t hurt as much as Clint’s expecting, which gives him a funny feeling. Didn’t he get this shit beaten out of him? Maybe he’s just so glad to see Phil he doesn’t notice that it hurts.

“Where’s here?” he asks cautiously.

“New York,” says Phil softly, staring fixedly at his face like he’s not sure Clint’s really here.

“Shit. How long was I out?”

“A month,” says Phil, and in those two words Clint hears an age of fear and dread. “We nearly lost you. You had to have emergency surgery to relieve the swelling in your brain before we could bring you here.”

“I had surgery in KOSOVO?” he asks in rising alarm, mentally poking at his brain to see if he feels like any of it’s missing.

“You had surgery in a Kosovo hospital. You had a neurosurgeon from Switzerland.”

“Oh. That’s …good.”

“You were flown here after that. You’ve been in a coma since Thor and Iron Man rescued you and the Alcorn boy.” Oh, Clint thinks. Danny!

“Where’s Danny?” he asks, trying to sit up but failing utterly because he’s too dizzy and Phil’s pressing against his chest to keep him down.

“The Alcorns are fine. Following the rescue, the….admittedly very few….surviving kidnappers told their tale readily enough. Small time organized crime, drugs and guns mainly, wanting to be bigger. They hoped to attract the attention and then the custom of the Mafiya, and intended to use the Ambassador’s diplomatic immunity to aid in their smuggling and drug dealing enterprises. He wouldn’t cooperate, so they planned to use his son to encourage him. During debriefing, Daniel told his father all the things you did to save him. They’re very grateful. It seems he also told his father of his sexual leanings, although the agent in charge of that debriefing says he seemed very frightened to reveal this. He said that you had showed him it was all right to be himself and that you thought he was a good person, and he didn’t want to hide it anymore. He was, according to Paulson, expecting to be disowned on the spot and was thus terribly surprised when his father hugged him and told him he didn’t care about that, only that he was safe, and how proud he was. I’ll inform them that you’re awake. I expect the boy at least will want to see you sometime soon. He obviously has deep feelings for you.” Phil’s voice is bland enough, but he’s looking at Clint with the demands rather poorly concealed.

“I didn’t….we didn’t….no. Phil, he was the most horrible little prick I’ve ever met. Tried to get me to wait on him hand and foot. SLAPPED me one night. I lost my temper, threw him over the couch, waylaid his ass with my belt. Then he breaks down, thanks me, tries to tell me he loves me. I figure out he’s gay AND never been with another guy AND it turned him on like crazy when I belted him, so we talked a lot. Turns out he’s a pretty great kid, and he was brave as fuck while we were being held. Brave AND smart. But nothing happened.”

Phil’s mouth twitches a little, though through the amusement and enormous relief, Clint can tell Phil is also angry.

“You actually spanked the son of the U.S. Ambassador to Kosovo?”

“Um.”

“Let’s just set that aside for now. You’re lucky he liked it, or you’d probably be in a lot of trouble.”

“Oh I know Sir. It was stupid, but I gotta say it did him a world of good. What…how’s my hand?” he asks, afraid to, but needing to know. Stupid kidnappers had gone with the odds and assumed he was right handed. It’s not his draw hand, but if the damage is permanent, he’ll have trouble holding his bow correctly. Phil sighs.

“Once your brain stopped bleeding and we got you home, the doctors decided to keep you in a coma so you could heal. Your reputation for being uncooperative with medical teams is rather…legendary. You’ve undergone surgery to repair the damage to your hand. The surgeon believes you’ll recover full use. They repaired a small tear in your rotator cuff. You had a couple of cracked ribs, which would normally have to heal on their own, but Bruce inadvertently created a bonding agent that repairs bone fractures while he was working on new sedatives and methods for restraining Hulk, and it’s nothing short of miraculous.”

“Is everything Bruce and Tony invent an accident?” Clint muses wonderingly.

“I doubt it, but they do have a fairly astonishing track record for happy coincidences. You had a detached retina from the repeated head traumas, but that’s been repaired also.”

“Guess they really did a number on me, huh?” says Clint, running his hand through his hair and wincing when the IV pinches because he’d forgotten about it.

“Mm,” says Phil, pressing his mouth into a thin line. “How exactly is that, Clint?”

In a sudden rush of nerves, Clint recalls every protocol he broke during the course of his stint as Danny’s bodyguard, and during their brief captivity.

“I did the best I could with a bad situation, Sir,” he says uncomfortably.

“Did you?” muses Phil, and Clint becomes aware that Phil isn’t annoyed. He isn’t frustrated. He isn’t upset. He’s ANGRY.

“The kid....Danny…he needed someone, Sir.”

“I can respect that,” says Phil softly. “Your generosity of spirit despite the fact that you pretend to be a shallow, disrespectful, cocky bastard, is one of the things I love about you. You risk yourself for others so often, Clint, and it is one of the things I accepted about you a long time ago. I wouldn’t ask you to change that, because it’s part of you. But Clint?”

“Yes Sir?”

“I won’t tolerate you risking what belongs to _me_ when there are other options. Take me through it, because no one had any communication with you the entire time you were with Alcorn in Kosovo. What the hell happened? I want to hear it from _you,_ not a CIA analyst or an underaged boy or Nick fucking Fury.” Phil’s knuckles are white where he’s clenching his fists against his thighs. Clint’s mind races. He could slant the telling so that the bad decisions don’t sound quite so bad, and he’s sorely tempted to do it, because he really, really doesn’t want Coulson to be angry with him. Then he’s not even sure why the thought crosses his mind, because he’s not going to lie to Phil, no matter what. He swallows hard and bites his lip, thinking about what to say.

“At the beginning of the assignment, it was fine, Sir,” he says reluctantly. “I was on recon, sniper position almost all the time. You know how Pristina is…buildings packed so close together it’s easy to keep eyes up high.”

“Yes.”

“I neutralized two targets the first week, and nobody on the ground even knew they were there,” he says earnestly. He’s not bragging, he just wants Phil to understand he really had been doing his job. “I told the Ambassador I thought his son might take the threat more seriously if he knew some of this stuff, but he refused, said he didn’t want Danny upset. Meanwhile the kid’s doing his damndest to shake his bodyguards every time they turn around, because he thinks it’s just lame, that his old man just wants to keep tabs on him and ruin his fun. Thought it was a stupid decision, but not my call.”

“It was a stupid decision,” agrees Phil, because he has met Danny.

“Anyway, week two, the kid’s in a bar, one bodyguard inside, one out. There’s a crowd in the street, and I’m doing my best to keep an eye on the kid. It’s not my job to watch out for other professionals, you gotta depend on the other members of a detail to do their jobs, you know?”

“Hm. Wonder who taught you that,” muses Phil.

“Um. Yeah. So the outside guard gets killed, right there on the street, and the inside guy rushes the kid out the back door when people start screaming, and the boy has no idea what’s going on. I tagged the perp finally, but it was too late. And STILL the Ambassador refused to tell his son what was going on. Not only that, but rather than hire or request another bodyguard, he decides he wants me to fill the position. I told him that wasn’t my field of expertise, but he insisted, called my CIA handler, the one Fury uses as our liaison with that organization, and Assistant Director Jeffries tells me to do what the Ambassador wants, because it’s only two more weeks and he’s confident I can handle it.”

“Clint,” says Phil, censure in his voice. Clint sighs.

“And I’m not the CIA’s lapdog, and I should have contacted Fury right then,” he admits ruefully.

“Yes, you should have,” agrees Phil softly. “Continue.”

Fuck. Shit. So stupid. Of course he should have called Fury. The communication ban was only to lessen the likelihood of someone listening in and discovering SHIELD’s (albeit unofficial) involvement in the scenario. The moment he’d been called upon to fulfill a position for which he didn’t feel qualified, he should have called. He sighs, scrubs his face with his hand, wincing again. He really hates IVs. He knows intellectually that the part in his vein is plastic, and flexible, but it still makes him feel like if he moves that hand, it’s going to punch through. Plus it makes him feel tied to the bed. And not in a good way.

“So I did what they told me, and filled in the position. And I swear Phil, I wanted to strangle the little bastard at least ten out of every twelve hour shift I spent with him. The other body guard…” Oh! He hasn’t thought until just now. “Oh shit, is he okay? Ryan Spence, ex-SEAL, he was the other guy I worked with. He’s pretty okay. I heard…I thought I heard someone fall, the night they took us…..shit, I didn’t even remember…”

“Hush,: says Phil. “Spence is fine. He took a tranquilizer dart in the shoulder, though they’d probably been aiming at his neck. Go on.”

“Okay. We did our jobs, followed the prick around, put up with him being rude, condescending. He got his dad to let him rent a hotel room so he could….decompress, I think it what he said. Stupid again.”

“I quite agree,” says Phil mildly. “And?”

Clint’s starting to feel distinctly uncomfortable. He’s been so fucking off his game for the last couple of months. Missing Phil has occupied so much of his mind that he’s let stuff pass he shouldn’t have, he’s forgotten his training. Anything that interferes with his ability to do his job, in whatever capacity that is, becomes his responsibility to change. Phil taught him that, too. That he didn’t have to just get pissed or let an op get fucked up because someone made a call that prevented him from fulfilling his responsibilities. He’s supposed to pipe the fuck up and tell someone. Civilian contacts or clients or assignments don’t call the shots, SHIELD agents who are called upon to do a job call the shots, when it pertains to getting the job done. So Clint should have nixed the hotel idea from the start. It’s hard for him to regret it too much, because despite all the horrible stuff that happened, Danny is now looking at the kind of changes in his life that are going to make him one hell of a man one day. Still, even if it meant Danny would have still been an obnoxious turd, Phil wouldn’t be sitting here beside his sub’s hospital bed after he’d nearly died. Again.

“God, I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

“Not now, Clint,” says Phil sharply. “Debrief. Continue.”

Clint does, describing his Come-to-Jesus confrontation with Danny over his behavior, the things they talked about, the reason he allowed the hotel stay to be extended. Another mistake, and he’d known even at the time that it was one.

“I know I should have gotten us out of there and to a more secure location, Sir. But he was so needy, and I felt for him, and it just seemed like if I denied him the time, he’d have slipped back into the way he was acting before.”

“A teenaged boy’s attitude problems….a teenaged boy who you were unlikely ever to see again, I might add, took precedence over your responsibility to your team and to me,” says Phil flatly. And oh that hurts. Clint winces, feels about two centimeters tall. Phil cuts off his remorse at the knees and orders him to continue, which he does, though his voice cracks a lot and he keeps having to stop to clear his throat.

He recounts what happened while they were in the kidnappers’ custody, emphasizing how well Danny stood up.

“I should have left him,” he says bleakly. “I could have gotten out without him. Could have gone through the vents, over the roof. He couldn’t have gone that way, but they wouldn’t have killed him, they needed him alive, so I should have left him behind and gone back to rescue him later,” he finishes miserably.

“Clint,” says Phil, gentleness in his voice this time. “That is the one decision you made in violation of protocol that I don’t blame you for. It sickens me that it nearly cost you your life, but….you couldn’t leave him. I’d have done the same. It’s who you are. Don’t carry the blame for that one around with you. Fury will probably yell at you a little over it, but…you did right to stay with him.” Clint sags a little in relief. He’s willing to own his mistakes, but he just hasn’t been able to convince himself that staying with Danny had been one of them.

“Thank you, Sir,” he breathes. Phil looks at him for a long time, not saying anything, his blue eyes exhausted but gazing at Clint as though he cannot get his fill of him. His eyes travel over the archer’s face, his body, back and forth, as though he’s assuring himself that Clint is still whole.

“I almost lost you, baby boy,” he whispers hoarsely.

“I’m so sorry, Master,” pleads Clint. His heart aches in his chest like a rotten tooth. He can’t bear the grief in Phil’s eyes. Grief he put there, however unintentionally, by choices he’d made. Choices he should have made  differently. He knows he got lucky, that he has a team that will come for him, through hell or high water, because he’d cut himself off from SHIELD during the op when he hadn’t really needed to. His head’s been so screwed up that he’d wrapped his loneliness around him like a blanket and wallowed in it, not thinking clearly when he should have. He’s also lucky that Danny hadn’t been hurt worse than he had, or even killed. It feels like there’s a chasm between him and Phil, that the couple of feet between his bed and Phil’s chair might as well be miles. “Please forgive me. I missed you so much, I let it mess up my head, and I didn’t think. I’m sorry.”

Phil sighs, scrubs both palms over his haggard face, then looks at Clint again. He places one hand on the bed, slides it towards Clint, palm up, fingers reaching. Clint isn’t sure if he’s supposed to reach out too, shorten the distance, or wait for Phil to decide what to do, the hand moves so slowly. Phil sighs again, the fingers close once, open again, close….beckoning.  Clint’s oblivious to the pinch of the IV when he twines his fingers with Phil’s and their hands clasp, skin warm against skin. He closes his eyes and lets out a shuddering sigh, then a small whimper when Phil brings their hands to his mouth, kisses Clint’s knuckles, softly at first, then with his mouth open a little, so Clint can feel the warm wet of his tongue brushing his fingers, the delicate skin between them.

“Oh god,” he moans softly.

“Clint,” whispers Phil against his knuckles, “I love you. I have missed you too, and things have been off in my head for a while now too. But if you can’t…get your head in the game when you need to, remember your training, if you can’t do that, then we will have to rethink this. I won’t be the reason something happens to you. We knew we wouldn’t have weeks on end to spend together. Our jobs prevent it, and they probably will for a long time. Those jobs….they’re more important than the two of us. Do you see that?”

“Yes Sir,” whispers Clint, because he hasn’t got enough air to say it louder.  Phil takes in his stricken expression and shakes his head a little.

“Don’t look at me like that, you’ll kill me,” he says ruefully. “I’m not releasing you, little boy. I’m just telling you that you have to do better than this when our schedules are a mess and we have to go a long time between visits.  You sulking about not getting your D/s fix could have had disastrous consequences, for you (and incidentally me) and for that boy. You’re never that badly off your game. Your grasp of field conditions is intuitive and it’s one of the things that drew me to you as a handler. I forbid you to let your feelings, your desires, get in the way of you coming the hell home to me. Ever. Again. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

He really does. Forceful Phil is really, really hot, but Clint also gets that he’s quite serious. Inappropriate erections are just his cross to bear.

“Yes, Master,” he murmurs, looking down at the plain white cotton blanket covering his legs.

“You’re forgiven,” says Phil with a reluctant smile, but before Clint can thank him, he continues. “But there’ll be a reckoning. Hear me?”

Clint swallows.

“Yes Sir.”

 

It’s another month before he’s cleared for travel. A week of CT scans and daily physical therapy (he’ll have more, but they have facilities for it in Frisco too), vision tests, psych evals, debriefs. The bright point is when Danny visits him in his room, where he’s finally been allowed to move, though there’s still medical equipment, a heart monitor, an EEG that he has to keep stuck to his head a lot more often than he wants to, but they’re not taking any chances with brain damage. He has headaches, crippling ones, a couple of times a week. He’s sitting in his recliner, concentrating on squeezing his fistful of exercise putty until he feels the warning stab of pain in his hand. Tasha’s fiddling with the controls of the TENS unit, turning it up slowly until the muscles in his forearm start to jump.

“There,” he grits as the tingle approaches pain. He’s taking more than is comfortable, but it’s unthinkable not to recover full use of his hand.

There’s a tap at the door, and Tasha goes to answer it, leaving him frowning and trying to squeeze the life out of the blue putty. It’s probably the physical therapist or his doctor. It isn’t. A SHIELD agent and a tall young man in a soft turtleneck sweater covered by a clearly expensive and well-made jacket, dark jeans and boots is standing uncertainly behind her. The agent announces that he has a visitor, and hurries of, probably she’d been taken from other duties to play escort. Clint feels his face light up with a delighted grin.

“Danny!” he cries, pleased. The kid looks good. Great, in fact. Clint’s glad to see the jeans are gone. The emo hair is too. His dark hair tumbles, a little shaggy, over his forehead but not in his eyes. It’s shorter on the sides, but still a little long in back, somehow managing to look carelessly stylish. The boy looks shy, uncertain, but he’s smiling. Clint introduces him to Natasha, who is as gracious as only she can be when she wants to. Danny’s clearly a little overwhelmed by standing face to face with the deadly Black Widow. She lets him off the hook pretty quick, murmuring that she has an appointment and will be back later. Danny sits on the couch next to Clint’s chair at his urging.

“Look at you, man! You look great! I’m really glad you came. Ii was hoping to see you,” he says, meaning every word. Danny blushes a little.

“I’m glad I came too,” he says. “I wanted to thank you for saving me….for everything.”

“Even blistering your ass?” Clint teases gently. He expects more blushes and is surprised when Danny just grins, the ice broken.

“Especially that,” he says with a laugh. “God, Mr. Barton…”

“Clint,” the archer corrects gently. “Dude, you’ve seen me naked and bleeding. I think we’re on a first name basis!”

“Okay. Clint…I don’t know how anybody stood me before you…um…set me straight. I’m glad you told me I should talk to my dad, too, that night before we got nabbed…I did it, told him I’m gay.” There’s a shiny wonder in the boy’s eyes that makes Clint want to hug him, but….TENS unit. “He didn’t care,” says Danny. “He was just glad I was safe. He said he didn’t give a shit…and he really said shit….who I wanted to have sex with, I was his son and I always would be.”

“Awesome. I’m so glad. I thought he’d feel that way. He was trying so hard to keep you safe, I just couldn’t believe that was coming from a man who didn’t love his son. He was an idiot about it, but….yeah.”

“He talks to me now,” says Danny, sounding pleased. “Asks my advice sometimes. And…I….Clint, I met someone.”

“Dude, that’s so cool. Who’s the lucky guy?”

“His name’s Grant. I’m at UVA this semester. I want to be close to Quantico. Dad’s not thrilled, but I want to join the FBI when I graduate, I’m studying Psych and Criminal Justice. I’d….I’d like to be a profiler.”

“You’ve got the brains and the eye for it, Danny. You let me know when you’re ready to apply. You’ll have a recommendation letter from Hawkeye and Director Fury, probably Stark and Thor too, you impressed all of them.”

“Wow, thanks….so anyway…Grant…he’s just started at Quantico. I met him when I went for a criminal profiling seminar for one of my classes. He’s 23, but we….um….waited until I turned 18 to….you know.”

“How’s that working for you?” asks Clint, not really caring if it’s personal. He and this rather astonishing young man have shared more than a lot of lovers share, and it’s a lot like having a kid brother might be, he imagines. He resolutely doesn’t think about what it used to be like to BE a younger brother.

“It’s….shit, Clint…it’s fuckin’ awesome,” breathes the boy….no, not a boy anymore, Clint’s looking at a man, and one who is going to be something spectacular one day. “He was really careful, and gentle at first. I was….well I was scared shitless to tell him…stuff. That I wanted him to do. To me.”

“I’m guessing you found a way?”

“Yeah. We were at his apartment, fixing dinner, and I started throwing cooked pasta at him. He laughed at first, so I kept doing it, and finally he told me I was acting like a rotten little kid. So I said….doesn’t it make you wanna treat me like one? He laughed again, but I didn’t…I just looked right at him, shoved a wooden spoon across the counter to him with one hand and really deliberately tossed a string of spaghetti in his face with the other.”

Clint bursts out laughing, imagining the scene.

“Dude, that’s priceless. So he took the hint?”

“Oh yeah, I found myself leaning over the counter while he paddled me with the spoon. He was kind of awkward at first, so I…um…dropped my pants…and pretty soon he go the hint, since I couldn’t stop humping the counter!”

They both laugh and tease each other and Danny tells him more about his boyfriend and school and stuff. The TENS unit beeps and turns off, so Clint peels off the leads and sets the blue putty into it’s plastic case. Danny grows serious.

“Is it going to be okay? Your hand?”

“The doctors say I’ll be fine, it’s just going to take some work.”

“You nearly died for me,” whispers Danny, his eyes overbright. “I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

“Hey, c’mon man,” says Clint uncomfortably. “I’m not gonna say something stupid like I was just doing my job, cause that’d be insulting to you. Yeah ok, it was my job, but if that was all I was doing, I’d have left you, used the vents to get out, and hoped I could return with help and rescue you in time. I’d have never let you convince me to let you keep that hotel room. Once you stop being an insufferable prick, you’re a really great guy. You became more than a job, more like a real friend, or a brother. Friends, Danny…friends don’t need to repay.  Yeah?”

Danny nods, and Clint just knows he really gets it, isn’t just nodding to placate him.

“I’m sorry you got hurt so bad, though,” he says sadly. “Has your…Phil, been here?”

“Yeah,” sighs Clint. “He was here when I woke up from the coma. He had to go back to San Francisco though. He’s director of operations out there. Once I’m fit for travel, I’m being allowed to go spend some time there.”

“You don’t sound as happy about that as I’d think you would be,” says Danny, once again too astute for comfort.

“Phil was pretty mad at me. I made some big mistakes on that detail.”

“You should have left me,” whispers the young man, looking stricken.

“No, that’s the thing he wasn’t pissed about. He said I’d made the right decision. What I  DID really screw up was letting your dad push me into replacing the bodyguard who got killed. I’m a sniper. That’s what I’m best at. I should have called someone here when that happened. I should have overridden your dad’s orders to keep you in the dark, because you being in the dark made it harder to do my job. And I shouldn’t have allowed you to get that hotel room, let alone keep it for a fucking week. It’s hard for me to regret any of it though, Danny. You wouldn’t be sitting here right now looking like a million bucks and so happy you practically shine, if I hadn’t taken the position as your bodyguard, and the United States would probably not be looking forward to having one of the best profilers ever to come out of Quantico in a few years.”

“What’s he going to do to you?” asks the young man sympathetically.

“What makes you think he’s going to do ANYthing to me?”

“You wouldn’t sound that bugged about it if it was a done deal, and you wouldn’t be bouncing your knee and fiddling with that pendant if you weren’t nervous about it.”

“Jesus, dude. You’re fuckin dangerous!” exclaims Clint. “But yeah, I’m worried about it. I don’t know what he’s gonna do, but it’s probably not going to be fun.” Danny reaches out and gently squeezes his right hand in support. Clint’s touched, and also pleased by how firmly he’s able to squeeze back. “Mostly it just really sucks knowing I scared him, and hurt him, and knowing he’s mad at me. No, not mad. He said he forgave me, and Phil doesn’t lie. I’m not going to be some whiny, needy asshole who keeps at him about it, begging forgiveness when he’s already given it. I just….I used to be a fuckup. I’m so good with the bow that SHIELD wanted me no matter what, but I didn’t listen to orders very well, tossed rules and protocols out the window every chance I got, did things my way even when I had a handler running an op for me. I cussed and drank and fucked around. I hated the way the prissy, buttoned-up straightlaced agents in charge treated me like I was trash. I don’t have a real education. I never consistently went to school. My father was a drunk and an asshole who beat the shit out of my mom and my brother and me, until he was too drunk to drive one night and steered himself and my mom straight into the path of a semi. My background was shit and everybody knew it. All of the things I know now that  make me a good agent and a candidate for the Avengers Initiative, I learned from Phil. He was my handler for several years, until we found Cap and the cube frozen in the ice and stuff started to change. It’s….pretty poor repayment to forget stuff he taught me. We’ll get past it. Don’t worry.”

He adds the last because Danny IS looking worried. They spend a couple of hours talking about their lives, Clint answers more questions Danny has about D/s stuff, questions he has about the physical aspects of being in a relationship with another man, questions about Natasha that he doesn’t answer in quite as much depth as he does the some of the others, because Tasha’s a very private person, and though the extent to which she has become able to open up to him, Phil, and their close friends is kind of astonishing, she doesn’t know Danny, and wouldn’t appreciate personal stuff of hers being shared with him. They say goodbye when Danny realizes it’s dark and he has to get back to Virginia soon, though Clint promises to keep in touch and gets Danny’s email address. Strangely, after the young man leaves, Clint feels a lot more peaceful about the reckoning Phil’s promised him. He supposes it’s that if he had to make decisions that resulted in Phil being pissed enough to….ok, to punish him, he finally says that word to himself, in the context it’s intended, not in the dirty sexy fun context….then he feels like it ought to at least be a price worth paying. Seeing the dramatic change in Danny, the way the guy just kind of radiates happiness now, he thinks it’s worth the cost.

 

When he’s cleared for travel, considered recovered enough to be out of a doctor’s care, he’s only having the headaches about once a week, his vision doesn’t blur on him when he gets tired, his ribs don’t pain him anymore at all, and his hand’s recovered about 80% of its range of motion and strength. He can draw his bow, but his hand starts to hurt after about a dozen pulls and the muscles start to jerk and spasm uncomfortably. He carries the putty around with him almost all the time, and he takes those dozen shots every day. The physical therapist is the only medical professional EVER to treat Clint who finds him cooperative. She even tells his doctor and Fury that she doesn’t really see a need to set him up with a new therapist in Frisco, because he’s working himself harder than any professional would, and nothing they could do for him would help him heal faster than he’s doing on his own. So, it’s time. Though Fury doesn’t really approve of fraternization, he actually supports Phil and Clint’s request to let him spend the rest of his recovery on the opposite coast. Tasha is the one who convinces him, by baldly pointing out that if Clint stays in New York, Fury’s going to find a reason to use him. Something bad will happen, and the team will be activated, and Fury will see a use for Hawkeye’s skills and won’t be able to keep from asking him. And when something bad enough to activate the team happens, even if Fury doesn’t ask, Clint’s not going to be able to let himself stay behind while the Avengers answer the call. Between the two of them, Fury and Clint are pretty likely to damage the archer permanently if he’s not gotten out of reach for a while longer.

Phil’s not on the helipad when Clint disembarks from the ‘jet.  There’s a staff member waiting instead, who delivers the message that Director Coulson is in a meeting and would like for Agent Barton to wait for him in Coulson’s rooms. The young admin does a pretty creditable job of not leering or smirking when he says this. Clint thanks him, hoists his bag over his shoulder and trudges down the stairs. Knowing Phil, he’s going to have to wait for a long time. Letting Clint stew never fails to tie him in knots, and Phil’s probably wanting him in knots right now. Not like he hasn’t been since he got on the ‘jet in New York. Or, honestly, since Phil left to come back here a month ago. Partly this is because he despises disappointing Coulson, and partly it’s because when he thinks about how badly some of the things they do for FUN hurt him, he feels a little sick when he wonders how much worse _punishment_ is going to be.

There’s a note sitting on the little table beside the door, the one where Phil sets his keys and wallet and I.D. badge when he’s done with work for the day. It’s plain cream-colored paper, heavy and with a high linen content, so that it feels luxurious in his fingers when he picks it up to read. Even Phil’s note paper is classy. The note is hand-written in Phil’s neat, blocky printing.

_I have missed you every day. To have nearly lost you is a horror so great it has haunted my dreams and my every waking moment since your distress signal was received. I am so glad you are here, and my need to be with you, to fill you and hold you, to prove to myself with the feel of you under my hands that you are well is so great I can hardly breathe with wanting it. But you are well aware there is business between us to be attended to first. Please know that I am not punishing you for doing what you had to do to save that boy. He is a young man well worth saving. Please know that I do not condemn you for making mistakes. We all make them. Please know also, my darling boy, that I am not angry with you anymore. The punishment you receive at my hands will serve to remind you that I expect you to do what you’ve been trained to do even when it’s hard or horrible and you don’t want to, and to take care of what’s mine. And you are, Clint. Mine. Go outside and cut three switches, baby boy. The largest, no bigger around at the base than your index finger, and the smallest no smaller around at the base than a pencil. Make them good ones, love, or I’ll find new ones, twice as many, and you’ll feel them until I’ve broken every one._

Jesus. Fuck. He groans softly to himself, bringing the paper up to his face, feeling the texture on his parted lips, the scent of ink and paper and (is it his imagination?) Phil in his nostrils, the words twining into his brain and gut and heart, mixing equal parts love and lust and nerves. He just stands there for a minute, bracing one hand, the damaged one, on the wall of the entry hall, holding the note with his left, head down and eyes closed, letting the months of missing Coulson drain away, shedding the doubts and frustrations that have plagued him and made him sloppy, sullen, unable to keep his head in the game. It’s almost a physical sensation, as though the bad dries up and flakes away, drifts from him like leaves in Autumn, It’s not that he’s looking forward to what’s coming. He isn’t. It’s that the rightness of it washes over him like soft Spring sun and he’s not afraid. Things with him and Phil will be okay. He doesn’t know how to explain that he can hear that in the tone of the words on the paper, he just can.

Then he folds the paper, puts it in his pocket, and frowns. Where the _fuck_ is he supposed to find switches in the middle of downtown San Francisco? Just thinking of it makes him squirm. He recalls their little exchange about Christmas stockings while he rides the elevator down to the ground floor. The couple of junior agents sharing the car with him look at him nervously, out of the corner of their eyes, when he muffles a tiny whimper and bites his lip.

“Ah….recent injury,” he says vaguely, holding up his hand to show the scar. “Giving me hell today.”

They nod sympathetically and he hopes they haven’t noticed the raging hard-on tenting his pants. He’s really going to have to stop thinking about this that way, because he really does know it isn’t about sex, and he refuses to be the kind of sub who gets off on being punished and starts fucking up on purpose. Phil would stand for that for about….no time at all. No, it’s not that he’s aroused by the impending punishment, he feels shitty about that, about disappointing Phil. He’s confused, and he hates trying to work out this convoluted psychological shit, but he figures he probably shouldn’t walk into this with his emotions and his dick confusing what he’s feeling, and what he w _ants_ , with what he needs and what Phil needs. If that even makes sense. He muses about it as he walks out into the California sun, that his body’s reaction to the couple of phrases in the note that push his bad little boy buttons is just instinctive, and he’s not going to let it bother him. He supposes part of it is that he’s just fucking relieved that all the waiting is over, and he’s here, and he’s going to see Phil soon. And though he’s sad and sorry that Phil’s going to punish him, part of that relief is in knowing that Phil _will._ Is that fucked up? Maybe. He doesn’t care. Because Phil could dump guilt on him, or yell at him, make him feel like shit. Or he could just….leave. But he won’t. Phil won’t. Clint doesn’t know how he knows, but he’s as positive as he is that the sun will rise that once this is behind them, it’s going to be….well, behind them. So despite nerves and a little dread, mostly he’s relieved and happy to be here.

Twenty minutes later both the erection and the relief are things of the past. SHIELD is in the middle of downtown. There is plenty of greenery. Urban planners like to stick little clumps of flowers, decorative shrubs and trees all over the place to give people the illusion that progress hasn’t completely slaughtered nature’s hold on the cities. These plantings are pretty. They are nice little splashes of color amid concrete and steel. The only trees in the corporate sector of downtown San Francisco…..are palm trees. He’s perfectly aware that the difficulty is part of this, that it’s a test, sort of. He jumps onto a passing cable car and just rides it in whatever direction it’s going. He sees a sign for Golden Gate Park and the Botanical Gardens and is seriously considering whether vandalism is worth the risk because fucking HELL he wants to get back, he needs to see Phil so bad he can taste it. Taste him. Oh Jesus, not helping. He wants to get past this, wants the sweet and the pain that drives him, feeds his soul. That’s when he sees the florist shop. Oh.

Fifteen minutes, an unknown amount of cash and a lot of squirming embarrassment later, Clint is hightailing it back to HQ. There is a small bundle wrapped in green florist tissue clutched in his fist. The conversation with the florist had been one of the more mortifying experiences of his life. He’s desperately grateful to have encountered one of the classic stereotypes of the Frisco gay community in that the owner of the shop was a WILDLY flaming gay man with an outrageous sense of humor, because once he’d entered the shop, his brainstorm had smacked head first into a brick wall when he realized it was a full-service florist and he hadn’t a clue how to ask for what he wanted without being….really literal. So in response to the purring request of Josh the Gay Florist (this is how Clint is forever going to think of him, not in an insulting way, but because he’d gotten the impression that Josh took rather an enormous amount of glee in being as outrageously queer as he possibly could) who had said,

“Well hello there gorgeous, and just how may I…..help YOU today?” (request accompanied, honest to God, by a fingertip in the mouth and a tiger growl, Jesus),

Clint had opened his mouth, closed it again, considered turning around and walking out the door, and then blurted out,

“I need switches,” turning red all the way to the roots of his hair. The florist has squealed in delight and asked if he’d been a bad boy, to which Clint had replied that he had, and then spent a lot more time than he wanted discussing the merits of various different kinds of….what had he called the shit? Garnish? Is that just salads? He has no idea whether he can recall what actual sort of vegetable matter he’s had foisted on him. Pussy willow, he thinks. Something that had tons of yellow flowers all over but when they had been stripped off had left behind a long, slender, supple and very scary length of green wood, and some other thing he can’t identify but which also looks capable of stinging like a mother fucker. There had been some kind of really bizarre twigs that grew in actual _spirals_ but he’s dead sure Phil’s more interested in function than aesthetics, so he’d gone for straight, flexible, and scary. He hasn’t been spanked, flogged, caned, paddled, whipped or anything else in so long now that he’s pretty sure he’s turned into a pansy when it comes to what he can tolerate. He’s also aware that his tolerance and comfort level is utterly irrelevant in this case. He rigorously ignores the curious glances of SHIELD personnel as he passes through security and flees up to Phil’s rooms with his acquisitions. When he sets the bundle down on the dinette table, his palm has left the tissue crumpled and damp.

The unmistakable soft beep of the intercom makes his entire body clench in anticipation.

“Clint.” Phil’s voice through the speaker is warm. He doesn’t sound at all stern or angry, and Clint shivers because he wants to see him so badly.

“Yes Sir,” he responds quickly.

“Your mission was successful, I take it?”

“Yes Master.”

“Good. Leave them where they are. I want you to follow these instructions TO THE LETTER, do you understand?”

“Yes Master.”

“Go to my room, take off all your clothes. Fold them, and place them on the chair in the corner. Go to the end of the bed, clasp your hands behind your head, place your feet shoulder width apart, and Clint?”

“Master.”

“Don’t. Move.”

The intercom clicks off. Clint’s entire body is suddenly seized with a fine trembling which is as much terror as it is anticipation. He sucks in a shuddering breath. He’s going to see Phil, really see him, not just hold his hand from a hospital bed! Phil’s going to whip him with those delicate, graceful, deceptive lengths of branch that he leaves sitting on the table in their damp and crumpled wrapping. Deceptive, because they look so fragile, so easily snapped, and yet….because he’s never….and he couldn’t stop wondering….he’d surreptitiously snapped one of them down across his thigh. Through his pants, the burn had been immediate and startling. He trusts Phil, but is also very aware that he hasn’t let Phil down since their relationship turned personal and proprietary, and he doesn’t know what to expect. He doesn’t think Phil’s going to berate him, yell at him, make sure he feels shitty about what happened in Kosovo, but he’s not positive. A few harsh words from Phil, sincerely meant, will hurt him more than any torture he’s ever suffered.

He obeys the instructions to the letter. Steps into the bedroom, takes off his clothes with hands that shake a little, then folds them all and puts them on the chair, even his socks and underwear, which he never folds. He pauses for a moment over his boots, because there had been no instruction and technically they’re clothes. But Phil’s really insistent about shoes and furniture, so he sets them on the floor in front of the chair, side by side, perfectly lined up. He stands at the foot of the bed for a few moments, taking deep breaths and letting them out slowly. Don’t move may not sound like much of a challenge, but Clint knows better than most people what it really entails. People are almost never perfectly still. They twitch, they scratch and shift and fidget. Even standing in one place, they switch which foot takes more weight, angle their bodies, change position all the time. He closes his eyes, places his feet carefully and precisely as far apart as his shoulders, thinking about the physical sensation of their placement, that it’s balanced and his weight is evenly distributed. He inhales, deep and slow, and clasps his hands at the back of his head as he exhales. Then he waits.

Ten minutes in, he longs to shift his weight from one foot to the other. Clint knows how to be still. He’s spent endless hours mastering the impulses of his body. But he hates it. When he isn’t perched, motionless and breathless, waiting for the shot, Clint is never still. He shift, fidgets, twirls stuff in his fingers, sucks on a pencil or the tip of his thumb, bounces his knees, rocks and shimmies his hips to his own internal music. He can do this, but it’s hard. Twenty minutes in, his feet and legs hurt, and the muscles in his neck and shoulders are tense. He’s clasping his fingers too hard, and he wants to let go for just a second, wiggle them a couple times to loosen them back up. He doesn’t. That’s hard too. At thirty, he’s starting to sweat a little, the effort of motionlessness costing his body real fatigue. He grits his teeth and holds. Five minutes later, he’s unable to prevent the tremor in his muscles, the way his biceps burn and jump. The muscles in his thighs and calves quiver, spasm.

“Please Master,” he whispers, frantic. He hears the door open. He wants to sag in relief, but he doesn’t. His heart starts to hammer and he pants through his open mouth, every cell in his body yearning towards the sound of Phil coming home. He hears the jungle of keys and pocket change, the tick of plastic as the identification card is removed and set down. The soft brush of footsteps on carpet. He hears the faint rustle and scrape of the bundle of switches being picked up off the table. His breath seizes up on him, and he tremble. He can hear and sense Phil in the doorway behind him.

“Don’t turn around,” his Master’s voice warns softly. “but you may stand at ease, love. You did very well, and I know that was hard for you.”

Clint’s body sags in relief and he lets his hands drop to his sides, moves his feet and rocks gently back and forth from one to the other. It’s pure bliss. He groans softly in relief. He wants to turn around so badly he almost can’t bear it.

“Clint, I know how you feel about blindfolds, so I’m not going to do that to you. You’re going to get on the bed, lie face down. Put your arms wherever they’re comfortable, and spread your legs about two feet apart. Then I’m going to ask you to close your eyes. You’re not to open them until I tell you to. Can you do that?”

Tears well up in Clint’s eyes. Not being able to look at Phil after this long aches like a bruise.

“Yes Master,” he whimpers miserably.

“Clint….beautiful boy…..the first time we look at each other after so long, after so much has happened…it’s going to be when the slate’s clean.”

The beauty of this sentiment steals Clint’s breath and he nods eagerly.

“Yes Master.”

“Good boy. Now go ahead, face down on the bed like I described,” says Phil, his voice kind and gentle. Clint obeys instantly. It’s a comfortable position. He rests his arms at his sides, elbows bent, palms down at about head height. His legs aren’t spread wide enough for him to even feel any stretch in his hips or thighs. He turns his face to the side, resting his cheek on the bedspread, and closes his eyes.

He flinches when he feels the tip of one of the switches stroke slowly up the back of his right thigh and the swell of his ass.

“Do you understand why we’re here, Clint?” murmurs Coulson softly. There’s no anger in him, no condemnation.

“Because you have to punish me,” he sighs. The switch taps his ass, much too softly to hurt.

“Mm,” hums Phil. “Do I, Clint? DO I have to?”

“Yes,” says Clint calmly.

“Why?”

“I…I’m not sure I can explain it very well, Sir,” says the archer, squirming uncomfortably.

“Try.”

“Yes Sir. It’s….it’s not simple. I mean, there’s not just one reason. I…I’m a grown man. I don’t need someone to spank me when I make a bad decision. I’ve been living with the consequences of my own decisions for a lot of years. So…it’s not that, not really. It’s…oh hell. For one thing, it’s like the rats, you know?”

“The what now?” asks Phil, and Clint can hear that he’s having to try not to laugh.

“You know, the smart ones, that do the mazes and learn which button to push? One button gives them the cheese or whatever, and the other button shocks them. It hurts them, and they learn not to do the action that leads to getting hurt. Someone like me, a sniper, an asset, I have to depend on my training, on knowing exactly what to do when shit happens, without having to think about it. Most of what I do comes in….split second increments, you know? If I had to stop and think, I’d never take the shot.”

“That’s…very astute,” says Phil, and Clint can practically hear him mentally jotting that down to use in orientation training from now on. He smiles a little.

“So, when I got so I was so fucked up over not getting to see you, I let myself  get fucked up about everything, and I didn’t hold on to my training. I pushed the wrong button. The one that leads to pain. You can’t let me do that again. And if you pound it into my hide, I’ll remember it better next time. If that makes any sense.”

“It makes beautiful sense, little boy. Go on. You said several reasons.”

“One of them is, I think….just a little bit….that you need me to feel how much it hurt you, what happened to me. That…I guess it sort of goes with the first one maybe. You show me that it hurt, and I remember that it hurt next time I’m in a situation like that again.”

“That’s good. And?”

“And,” sighs Clint, “you don’t want it to, like, fester, maybe? Like if you didn’t do this, maybe you’d hold it in for a long time, but it would be there, that I’d screwed up, made you worry, scared you…and you wouldn’t want to, but maybe it would make you resent what I did. Maybe someday down the line, the next time I do something boneheaded, you’ll get a lot madder than you want to about it, because you’re still twisted up inside over _this_ thing. So, it’s that I need it so it’ll sorta fix the lesson in my muscles, in my body, instincts…on that kind of base level that my body remembers what to do even when my brain doesn’t have time to process. And you need it so….so it _won’t_ stay fixed in you. I’m sorry Sir, that’s stupid, but that’s how it seems to me.” He hunches his shoulders and knows his ears are red, and just hopes he doesn’t sound like too much of an idiot.

“ _Oh my God_ ,” says Phil feelingly. “I don’t think I have ever loved you more than I do at this moment.”

“I love you the most I ever have all the time,” sighs Clint contentedly. “Will you please punish me now, Master? I need to look at you.”

“Yes. Clint?” Phil’s voice is thick with emotion.

“Master?”

“ _Christ, you’re gorgeous,”_ mutters Phil, then, louder, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

There’s a pause, in which it feels to Clint as though the whole world holds its breath, then he senses Phil move, hears the susurration of cotton cloth sliding, the hiss of the switch slicing air for a split second, then, almost as though by magic, a hot line of fire seems to just _appear_ across his ass. He hisses through his teeth. It burns, almost seems to cut through skin like a very fine blade, yet it is not nearly so bad as other things, other times Phil has hurt him, played him, wrecked him. And yet, at the same time, it is more devastating than anything else Coulson has ever done to him. Because it _isn’t_ for fun. It comes again, heat and a bright little flare of pain, not too much, and Clint bites back a cry. Carefully and precisely Phil lays down perfectly spaced welts across the archer’s naked flesh, while Clint shivers and hides his face in the comforter, because he’s trying not to cry, wants to accept his punishment gracefully and knows perfectly well Phil isn’t hitting him hard enough to make him _cry_. Doesn’t even understand why it’s making him want to, need to. The tip of the switch taps him gently on the hip.

“Clint,” says Phil softly. “Why are you fighting so hard?”

“I shouldn’t….you’re not hitting me hard enough to….I’m _sorry_ , I’ll try not to.” He doubts seriously that this makes very much sense, but trusts that Phil will understand. A hand brushes gently across his hair, and he chokes on a sob.

“Darling boy,” Coulson voice says, smiling. “I know I’m not hitting you hard enough to make you cry. But you’re going to. This isn’t supposed to be some kind of catharsis for _you_ , Clint. It’s not about hurting you the way you’re used to, the way you LIKE. This is supposed to be awful for you. It would be easy for you, wouldn’t it, if I devastated you, whipped tears and sobs from you the way you expect, gave you a good cry so you felt clean again?  This is so difficult for you, and I mean for it to be. I mean for you to remember, Clint. You don’t get what you want, what you need to have to feel forgiven, until I’m ready. You want to cry because you feel bad, not because this hurts so much, and it confuses you, so you’re trying not to. Stop. I want to hear you. Show me you’re alive, Clint. You almost weren’t.”

The switch falls again, precise, stinging. Clint’s eyes burn and his stomach ties into knots at Phil’s words. Of course it shouldn’t be the way Clint wants. He’s an asshole. He stops biting his lips and lets himself wail sorrowfully when the next stroke falls.

“I’m so sorry,” he cries, hot tears spilling over. He doesn’t beg, doesn’t _deserve_ to beg. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He folds his arms, buries his face in them, and lets himself weep. It shakes him down so deeply inside his guts that he feels like he’s being turned inside out. It’s unbearable…not the whipping, but the knowing that he’d hurt Phil, who he’d never wish to hurt, that he’d scared him and oh God, disappointed him. He chants it over and over, a litany in his head and on his lips, sorry, sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry. He loses track of how long it lasts, begs forgiveness with every stroke, cries as though his heart has broken, feels indeed as though it HAS. “I’m SO SORRY!” he howls, feeling as though something tears in his throat. “Please! Master! Don’t leave me, I won’t do it again!”

There’s a sort of a wet cracking sound and a tiny thump. Phil has broken the switch, dropped it beside Clint on the bed. Clint feels his hands, cool and soft on his back, as Phil leans down near his head.

“Baby,” Phil murmurs into the back of his head. “Open your eyes and look at me.”

Clint does, eyes blurred with tears for a second until he blinks and rubs them with the back of his wrist. Phil’s eyes are bright with tears too.

“Listen to me,” says Phil fiercely. “I forgave you the first time you apologized to me. Now, this is forgotten. Do you hear me? Wiped clean. I will NEVER leave you, not unless you ask me to or the time comes for me to leave this world. Do you hear me? NEVER.”

“Please,” cries Clint, grasping for Phil’s hands, because he doesn’t know how to ask for what he wants, doesn’t even know himself exactly what that is. “I can’t…. _ungh….Phil!”_

“My forgiveness isn’t enough for you?” purrs Phil in his ear, and Clint nods wordlessly, gripping Phil’s hand urgently, making small desperate noises and whimpering. “I see. You need to forgive yourself, then?” Clint nods and nods because his head is too fucked up to talk. He’s utterly destroyed by the wrenching _lack_ of suffering he’s doing. It’s not enough.

“Know this, baby boy. Your punishment is over. Hear me? This is for you, because it’s my job to give you what you need. You’re going to have to let me know when you’ve gotten it, because the only thing there’s room for in my mind is how those pretty welts on your ass are going to feel to me when I’m in you.” With that, Phil picks up one of the other switches. He kneels beside the bed, rubs a tear from Clint’s cheek with his thumb. “Look at me,” he whispers. “Look at me while I do this, Clint.”

“Yes, Master,” says Clint wetly, and locks his eyes to Coulson’s face.

Then, oh, _then_ it’s what he needs. Phil slashes the switch down across the backs of his legs, paints searing welts all the way down, pauses at the bend of his leg. He feels the weight of Phil’s forearm press down against his calves, holding them in place, and then, oh fuck, oh god, fuck, fuck, Coulson swipes the vicious little twig…can that be? It hurts a lot more than the slender thing it is….across the backs of his knees, where he will feel the mark every time he bends them. His body, his brain, his entire _world_ becomes encompassed by the heat pain fire cut _burn_ of the unyielding strokes Phil lays down. He is merciless. Clint is delirious with relief as  he sobs unashamedly, letting it scour out the last of his guilt, his sorrow. He closes his eyes when the switch bites particularly hard, but only for the amount of time it takes him to yelp or gasp. His eyes stay open, resisting the urge to close down and let him live this purely inside his own head, and his eyes remain locked on Phil. Phil, who stares straight back, his blue eyes which are both kind and vicious. Hawkeye thinks that this isn’t _just_ for his own sake, because Coulson’s eyes are drowning nearly black with lust and his eyelids flutter just a little when Clint lets out a particularly pained sound, and his lips part and his tongue touches his bottom lip as though he can taste it, taste the pain and the archer’s cries. He thinks the punishment was kind of awful for Phil too, both because he’d hated doing it and because it hadn’t been enough for him either. This, now, this IS. There comes a point where Clint lets go of everything awful he’s felt for the last….however many months it’s been, because right now what even is math, and his body feels as light and fragile and perfect as an iridescent soap bubble, floating on what Phil is doing to him, and he stops bawling and just stares raptly into Phil’s eyes, tears falling silently, gasping, and he starts to whisper, a rambling stream of nonsense.

“Thank you,” he pants, ‘”ohhh, thank you Master….God…..oh _fuck_ it h…hurts…don’t stop….burning me up….ahhh….Phil….Sir….Master….thank you, th…thank you. So fucking good. God. Needed this. Need you. Ohhhh….do you love it, Sir? H….hurting me?....love me crying for you?.....I do….’s perfect…. nnng….ohgodohgod….fuck, hurts….so much….want you so bad….will you do it?,,,,when it’s….done? Will y…you fuck me? Wanna feel you in me….so bad….need your cock in me Sir….feel you for days….fuck me raw…ma…make me scream for you….take me…fill me up….make it hurt…make me cry and beg…..use me….own me….f… _fuck_ me.”

“How’s now work for you?” growls Phil, their eyes locked, and Clint’s pretty sure he looks about as sane as the older man does right about now, which is to say not at all.

“Now,” he breathes. “Now, oh _now.”_

Dimly, he hears the switch fall to the floor, but there’s no room in his head for anything but Phil as he stands up, unfastens his pants and drags out his cock, hard as iron, flushed red with hunger, a shining bead of precome at the slit. Clint sticks out his tongue and licks it off, and they both groan.

“Suck me,” hisses Phil, his voice ragged. “Get it nice and wet with that pretty mouth, because it’s all you’re getting, little boy.”

Clint whimpers at the teeth-gritting stab of need that lances into him at Phil’s words, taking his master’s cock into his mouth, reveling in the heavy, solid weight of it on his tongue, the heat, the salt taste. He’s making eager little noises in the back of his throat, probably sounds like an idiot, but he doesn’t give a fuck. This, oh _this_  is what he wants, Phil using his mouth roughly, the snarl and gasp he makes when Clint’s tongue strokes over the sensitive places, Coulson’s fingers stroking through his hair, then fisting, tugging. Clint usually tries to not make a mess when he goes down on Phil, but not now, not tonight. Partly it is because of the words still burning sick and sweet in his fevered brain…all you’re getting….but part of it is that he doesn’t have the presence of mind to keep his lips sealed  tight, to swallow as saliva pools in his mouth. He coats Phil’s cock with slippery spit, feels it wetting his chin, his hand where he wraps his thumb and index finger around the base so he can keep it aimed into his hungry mouth. Phil holds his head, fucks into his mouth, not gagging him, quite, but close. He groans, and Phil’s hand in his hair yanks, pulling his head back, shining strands of saliva dripping from Clint’s reddened, swollen mouth, from the head of Phil’s dick.

“Turn over,” snarls Phil, a hand on Clint’s hip, rolling him to his back. “Love fucking you from behind, baby boy, but I want to watch your face while I take you, watch your eyes when it hurts, when you whimper and cry and beg, watch you come for me…”

“Jesus,” gasps Clint. “Oh fuck Sir, PLEASE!”

Phil slides his hands under Clint’s thighs, grasping his hips and pulling him towards him, lifting his pelvis off the bedspread to rest on the handler’s splayed thighs where he crouches, panting, eyes hooded, watching Clint like he’s prey. He reaches up, thumbs Clint’s mouth open roughly and shoves two fingers in. Clint whines and sucks eagerly, because Phil wants him to, and he’s pretty sure why, so he lets his mouth practically drool all over Phil’s fingers, squirming and clutching at the bedspread. It’s only a few seconds before Phil pulls his fingers free and reaches between their bodies, between Clint’s legs. There’s one light brush of fingertips against his quivering hole and then Phil _jams_ both fingers in at once, bowing Clint’s back up off the bed, his head thrown back and a frantic, wounded sound wrenched from between his gritted teeth. The fingers twist roughly, curl inside him, and he shudders and spasms around the invasion, his body opening reluctantly. Fuck, he thinks desperately. It’s been…more than half a year….oh god, oh shit…he’ll rip me apart…

But Clint’s days of panicking before a fucking are past him. He greets the fear with the same eagerness he feels for pleasure. It doesn’t matter. Phil will keep him safe, won’t give him more than he can take. There’s no question of it, no doubt. The choice is not his, the ability to determine when he has or hasn’t had enough, or if something is too much….the burden of staying sane enough to make those decisions is blessedly gone for him. He’s not being stupid. It’s Phil. Phil, who has taught him, honed him into a glorious weapon, deadly graceful and perfect. Who has had his back, defended him, tended his wounds. To whom he has confessed his fears and secrets, who understands him and Tasha and loves them anyway. Who knows him better even than he knows himself, understands his limits, what he wants, what he craves, what he needs. Who is wise and smart and loves him. Were Phil a lesser man, Clint would know to keep his wits about him, pay closer attention to the messages his body sends him, but Phil is not a lesser man, and Clint lets go.

“Yes,” he whispers, voice catching when Phil’s finger stab deep and burning. “God. Yes, please. Master. Fuck me. Fuck me, please, oh please _fuck_ me. Need you so bad. Been so long. You gotta. Oh please, please…. _uhhnnggh.”_

The last of his plea turns into a strangled cry as Phil whips his fingers out of Clint’s grasping hole and presses his cock in, his hips powering forward as he shoves, forcing his way past the quivering ring of muscle and deep inside Clint’s straining body. And it hurts, oh it hurts, a heady, glorious flash that wrenches a helpless cry from the archer’s trembling body. His hands grope blindly, find Phil’s wrists where his hands dig cruelly into Clint’s hips, holding him still while Phil forces himself in, and he grasps them like a lifeline. Clint watches Phil’s face as his lover splits him open, enraptured by the hunger, the wildness, the ruthlessness and fierce joy in Coulson’s eyes, his pupils blown black, watching Clint’s face, grinning wolfish and greedy when the pain shows on the archer’s face.

“Hurts?” rumbles Phil in a gravelly voice, jabbing his hips harder, gaining another burning inch. Clint keens through his teeth, his nails digging into Phil’s wrists, and nods, open-mouthed and breathless. “Good,” says the older man brutally, smiling wider. Clint feels Phil’s balls press against him, knows he’s in as deep as he can go now, buried to the hilt in Clint’s trembling, straining body while he whines and gasps and tears fill his eyes at the stretch, the burn.

“Please,” he breathes, his voice small and thready with strain.

“Want me to stop, little boy?” hisses Phil, though Clint’s pretty sure this is a rhetorical question, and not the way some people might think when their lover was whimpering and crying and hurting under them. This time, though, Clint really has no desire for the rush his pleading for mercy usually brings him. It’s been too long, he’s been too lonely, needed this for too many terrible days, stretching back in his memory farther than he can bear. And the ache inside him, the hurt of Phil’s cock in his body, feels to fucking amazing to lie about, even for fun.

“No,” he gasps. “No, never. God. _Hnnng…_ Fuck, Sir, it hurts.”

“Pain looks good on you, little boy,” breathes Phil, drawing his hips back and then slamming in again, making Clint cry out helplessly and tears to spill out and down his temples, dampening his hair.

“ _More,”_ he whines, squirming, writhing on Phil’s impaling cock, trying to get him deeper even as his lip quivers and he sobs a little.

Phil hauls Clint’s hips up higher, goes up on his knees, holding Hawkeye’s thighs pressed against his belly, and goes to work, snapping his hips forward brutally, using the muscles in his back and shoulders to drive himself into Clint, who howls and struggles, though not really to get away. His body just has to rebel against the violation, unable to just meekly accept being invaded, taken so harshly. The pain coils through his brain like heady fumes of drugging smoke, fogging his mind until there is nothing for him but the gorgeous agony of Phil fucking him, owning him. His own dick is so hard, so starved that he’s only partly sobbing from pain, because a lot of it is gnawing, mindless need. He longs to touch himself, but he’s done that for so long, too long, that he can’t.

“Master,” he pleads, eyes begging Phil desperately to help him, touch him, anything. He arches his hips up in entreaty, mewling softly in the back of his throat.

Phil lets go with one hand, runs the tip of one finger up the rigid, trembling length of Clint’s cock, causing the younger man to hiss through his teeth and squirm.

“Want me to touch you, boy?”

Clint’s too obliterated to form words. He groans out some syllables that probably have alphabet in them somewhere but are mostly just desperate noise. Phil stops moving, looks down at him with his cock buried so far up Clint’s ass he can nearly taste it, and one eyebrow goes up, slow and sinister. Clint whimpers.

“You might,” says Coulson softly, his voice silky with menace, “want to answer me when I ask you a question.” And with the ends of his fingers, he reaches between them and slaps Clint’s straining cock. Not terribly hard, just a sharp little sting with his fingers.

Clint’s response is….electric. It feels like Phil has just connected his cock to the TENS unit and cranked the bitch up. Every nerve ending in his body stands the fuck up and begs. His body arches and he makes a ragged, inarticulate sound of mindless need. He does, however, also recover his voice. Sort of.

“OhfuckjesussirdothatagainGODshit…Phil, pleasepleaseplease….unnngh…..”

Phil chuckles. It’s a filthy sound, and rolls up Clint’s spine like heat lightning.

“Interesting,” he muses, and rolls his hips, stroking out and then back in deep, and he does it again. The shock of the sting is outrageous, breathtaking. He gasps and shudders, mewling and straining his hips towards Phil, who laughs and fucks harder, then begins to methodically and carefully slap the archer’s aching erection over and over, while Clint sobs for breath and pleads mindlessly, not even knowing what the fuck he’s asking for.

“Please,” he pants, “ohgodohgod… _please_ Sir, pleaseplease….I need….Gotta…nngh….ohfuck…. Master…it’s….PLEASE,” he finally howls, agonized.

“Yes,” hisses Phil, drilling into his burning hole like he’s going to fuck his way out the other side. The palm of his hand strikes Clint’s cock one more time, just right, and he comes, heels digging into the mattress, body curved back, shouting, choked sobs stealing his breath while he paints his belly and Phil’s hand with ropes of sticky white, his hole clamping down hard on Phil’s cock as it drives into him brutally, once, twice, three more times before Phil grabs on with both hands again and they convulse on his hips, digging bruises into his flesh, and he feels the pulse of Coulson’s release deep inside him, and Phil gasps and groans Clint’s name like it’s all he knows.  

Clint has no idea how much time passes while he floats around on the biggest endorphin rush of his life. Nothing hurts. He feels like he’s flying, sleepy and happy and perfect. He knows he’s going to be really sore tomorrow, but he doesn’t care, looks forward to it. He’s a slut that way, likes to press and poke at the marks Phil leaves for days afterwards, reawakening the echo of the pain like something warm and sugary he can roll around in his mouth and taste. He’ll wriggle and clench his asshole to feel the deep soreness inside, and smile. He drifts back down to reality slowly, aware that Phil has laid both of them down on the bed and dragged covers over them…he thinks he vaguely remembers Phil cleaning him gently before this happened, but isn’t sure….and that Phil has his arms wrapped around him, holding him snug up against his body. Clint presses his nose against Phil’s throat under his chin and makes contented little sounds, licking salt from Phil’s skin. Phil shivers a little and Clint grins against his neck, rootling around to snuggle his face closer, like a puppy, making Phil laugh. The hand on Clint’s hip lifts and smacks him on the ass. It isn’t very hard, because the comforter is in the way, but Clint whines and squirms and Phil warns him to be good or he’ll be sorry. Privately, Clint knows damn well he wouldn’t be sorry at all, but he’s really feeling good and sleepy and perfect, so he stops and snuggles, and Phil kisses the top of his head.

“So that was new,” says Phil in amusement, his breath ruffling Clint’s hair.

“Uhhhmmm,” agrees Clint.

“Did you know you….liked that sort of thing?” asks Phil curiously, lifting his head to look down at his very happy lover.

“Dunno…never thought much about cbt stuff Sir,” he mumbles softy, unable to resist licking Phil’s throat again because he likes the taste. “Don’t think I’d like the really rough stuff, but that was….yeah.”

“Yeah,” says Phil, smiling fondly at him. “Think I’m going to have to invest in a cock ring.”

Clint whimpers. He’s so screwed. Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story contains a scene in which Phil punishes Clint for making some thoughtless choices which endanger his life. In D/s relationships, if that is the way the relationship works for both parties, punishment does sometimes happen. For it to work, there has to be a great deal of trust between partners. The potential for real harm is a huge risk in this case. As a true submissive, who is not just in it for the sexy play and kink and rush of a little pain, one whose sincere desire is to serve and please another because that is what makes them happy, being punished by their Dominant can be devastating. As the dominant partner in a D/s relationship, it is your responsibility to make sure, if real punishment and not play punishment is part of the dynamic, that you use it sparingly and only when both parties agree it's warranted. Yes, both. If you decide to punish your sub and they truly believe they don't deserve it, you're potentially abusing them. If it is warranted, you had better by FUCKING God make sure that what you do and say isn't cruel or hurtful. Your disappointment is destroying your lover already. If you add to it, you're an asshole. When it's over, it's your responsibility to make sure that it's OVER AND DONE WITH. You don't bring it up in a disagreement later, you don't make pointed remarks about it for weeks to "remind" them not to do it again. You forgive, you make sure they know you forgive, and you make sure they know that you love and care for them and that you don't think they're stupid or a bad sub or less than worthy. If you don't handle this type of situation right, you could be destroying another human being.
> 
> If you're the submissive partner in a relationship, never ever think it means you don't have rights or that you have to take treatment you know is wrong. Submitting yourself utterly to another person is a beautiful and courageous act, and it NEVER, EVER means you are a lesser person. If a dominant acts like you are, run. Go far away and don't look back. If your dominant punishes you, and makes you feel like shit about it, calls you names, hurts you when you honestly believe you have done nothing wrong, they're not a dom, they're a bully, and you DON'T DESERVE IT. What you have to offer is worth your weight in gold. Don't stay with anyone who isn't worthy of it! Conversely, if your Dom is really decent, cares for and respects you, then you have no right to manipulate them into punishing you. It's despicable to act out on purpose to get into trouble. If there's something in you that needs the intensity of being punished, then you talk to your lover about a "play punishment" scene. You don't try to goad or piss them off enough to want to teach you a lesson. You're sabotaging your relationship, and being manipulative is never sexy.
> 
> D/s relationships take even more work than vanilla ones, because there are tons and tons of added potential for difficult issues. Communication is so crucial I can probably never say it enough. If you're a dom, never treat your sub like they have no say or choice. Cause they can choose to LEAVE. If you're a sub, never think you don't have a right to your own opinions and feelings. I'm working very hard to make Phil and Clint's D/s relationship a healthy one. Thank me by doing the same for yours!


	11. Part Eleven - Phil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This piece is a little interlude in the midst of this particular storyline. I've been writing exclusively from Clint's point of view, and will probably continue to do so, but I had an idea to let you all see Clint through Phil's eyes, because in my mind, the view from there is simply breathtaking
> 
> Herein you will find acrobatics as foreplay, butt plugs, signal whips, the use of an unregulated drug (ok, chemical compound actually) as a sex aid/sexual torment tool. The entire thing is, however, very consensual despite the fact that Clint Barton always insists on begging for mercy.

I, thinks Phil Coulson to himself, am quite possibly the luckiest human being on the face of the planet. No, he corrects himself as the breathtaking human being in front of him lifts himself from facedown on the floor into a handstand using _only his arms,_ on ANY planet. There are, after all, quite a bit more of them than anyone had previously been aware a couple of years ago.

Clint Barton holds himself motionless, the only indication that he’s expending any effort at all is the fine sheen of sweat on his golden skin and the faintest of tremors in his deltoid muscles as he waits patiently for Phil’s next order, perfectly perpendicular to the gym floor.

“One hand,” says Phil softly, casually flicking out with the braided signal whip in his right hand so that the tip of the lash curls almost lazily around Barton’s right bicep, leaving behind a very faint red mark.

“Yes, Master,” breathes Clint, slowly lifting his right hand off the ground, shifting his balance slightly so it’s centered over his left arm, bringing the right out to the side and then carefully pointing up towards the ceiling to lie flat along his side. Phil has to just step back and drink his fill of the sight of it.

Barton is a work of art. He reminds Phil of one of Michelangelo’s slave statues, rough and powerful and raw, not smooth perfection, oh no…Clint probably hasn’t been that since he was…he winces inwardly when he admits to himself that Clint’s body probably hasn’t been smooth perfection since he was a toddler. Some of the scars are that old. He shakes his head, putting that aside. Well, as best he can. His breathless awe at the sight of his lover, his toy, his property, is as always tempered as well as sharpened by the knowledge of what has gone into the shaping of him, and realization that in spite of it all, his beautiful boy is just as lovely on the inside as he is on the outside. Clint’s wearing nothing but clean sweat, light reddened welts, and a snug pair of black boxer briefs that do _nothing_ to conceal the fact that he’s achingly hard. Phil can see the outline of the cock ring pressed against the tightness of the cotton of his shorts. Gorgeous. Every square inch of Barton’s body is sleek muscle, controlled grace and power. Phil can’t really explain the impulse that’s driven him to put the boy through this tonight (he can’t help but think of Clint as a boy most of the time, despite the fact that he’s only about ten years younger than Phil), but he’s intoxicated by the heady sense of power. His eyes skim the cords of muscle in the firmly planted forearm, the bunch of bicep, tricep, deltoid. A drop of sweat trembles on the tip of a spike of the archer’s drenched, messy hair. They’ve been at this for quite a while, and Clint’s starting to show the strain.  The exquisite line of long, lean muscle up his spine makes Phil want to lick him there, a long wet swipe of tongue that will make Clint shudder and gasp. The most fantastic ass in the history of mankind clenches, holding his powerful legs motionless and fully extended. Little nips and scuffs and bites of the signal whip mark most of that gorgeous skin, twined and coiled around and among the scars that only make him more beautiful to Phil. Clint’s is not an innocent’s body, not the body of a man who has known mostly peace and easy living. Clint’s is a warrior’s body, and a survivor’s, and the tale of the cost of both is mapped upon his skin. Phil likes to trace the scars when they lie sleepy and sated in his bed, watching Deadliest Warrior or Ultimate Weapons. Sometimes Phil makes Clint watch cooking shows or Project Runway just to be mean. Then Clint whines and bitches until Phil shuts him up.

Because he’s swamped with lust at the direction of his thoughts, Phil thumbs the button on the little remote in his pocket, dialing it up a little more. Clint makes a wounded noise in his throat and trembles.

“Don’t fall,” warns Phil, knowing his voice is rough with desire, “or I’ll pull it out and redden that hole with this whip before I push it back in you.”

Clint whimpers, but steadies. Jesus Christ. Phil’s own cock has been uncomfortably hard for a long time now. He’s not sure how much longer he’s going to be able to wait. The buzz of the vibrating plug in Clint’s ass must be making him nearly insane. Part of Phil worries that it’s cruel to torment the archer this way, but he’s _drunk_ on the sight of him, sweating, trembling, desperate. God. It’s so perfect he could die a happy man on the spot. Not that he plans to. Oh no. No, he plans to bend Clint over the pommel horse and fuck him silly. Then he can die a happy man. He hopes, of course, to actually be able to continue to fuck Clint silly for a lot of years to come, but the principle of the thing is still true.

“Bars, little boy,” he growls, and snakes the whip to nip at Barton’s calves. He gasps, but flips gracefully to his feet and runs, the lights of the gym shining on the slide and play of muscle and sinew, making saliva pool in Coulson’s mouth. There are days, well, more moments now instead of whole days, when he wonders what in hell this incredible creature sees in a man like him, no longer young, losing his hair, of no remarkable good looks (though he admits to himself that his body is still pretty damn good) and of no particular special ability. Clint insists that Phil is a total BAMF, which Phil had to look up on the internet, informing Clint bemusedly that he’s not any more the right generation for netspeak like that than Phil is. Clint had climbed into his lap and whispered, “badass motherfucker,” In his ear, and bitten his collarbone.  Which had pretty much ended the discussion right there. Phil trails behind the archer, enjoying the view as he vaults up to grasp the lower of the parallel bars. He uses his body’s momentum to flip around it once and then hangs upside-down from it like a monkey, his knees hooked negligently over the bar, swinging gently and grinning at Phil. His smile is wide, joyous and a little bit crazy, in ways Clint never used to smile, and it makes Phil’s heart clutch a little in his chest with love for his archer. At the same time, Barton’s eyes are a little glassy, his pupils blown, the usual silvery blue turned nearly to slate with the intensity of his need. He is at the same time having a fantastic time and in an agony of effort and helpless lust. He’s been pushing his body’s endurance at Phil’s instruction for close to an hour now, his cock hard and desperate, unable to find release due to the newly-purchased ring snapped securely around the base of his erection and his balls. The (also newly purchased) remote-controlled vibrating plug is big enough so that he’s feeling the burn of the stretch and the fullness of it with every shift his body makes, and the diabolical toy nudges his prostate and purrs cruelly. Phil knows this, because he’d made sure of it when he bent the boy over and inserted it, Clint whining and panting the whole time and _Jesus_ Phil wants to bite him when he makes those helpless noises, working and nudging and twisting it until Clint had tensed all over and cried out from the pleasure of it hitting that sweet spot. He smiles, knowing very well that it isn’t a very nice smile, also knowing Clint loves it. He never stops anymore to wonder what is wrong with him, that he relishes, craves, _thrills_ at the pain, the frantic need, the utter subjugation he inflicts on Clint at almost any opportunity. He’s wondered, at various times in his life, if he’s some kind of a monster that the suffering of a lover, that their helpless cries and tears, the look of welts and bruises and reddened flesh just flat fucking _does_ it for him. Wondered, because he’s lost partners because of it before, or left them himself because they didn’t share his twisted desires. In Clint he has found the perfect partner. If anything, the younger man is more depraved than Coulson himself, willing to try anything at all Phil wants, submitting gleefully and reveling in his agony, thanking Phil and begging for more while he pleads for mercy. That this decadently filthy man also seeks to make Phil happy above almost all else is a miracle he marvels at each and every day.

“Comfy?” he asks with mock solicitude, baring his teeth (he can’t really call it a return smile).

“No Sir,” says Clint happily, breathing hard.

“Mm. Too bad. Put your hands behind your head. You’re pretty there. As a picture. Just doesn’t have quite enough red on the canvas.”

Clint shudders and muffles a small whimper. Phil trails the signal whip behind him as he stalks forward, watching Clint’s jittery eyes dart back and forth between Coulson’s face and the whip in his hand. Because he’s hanging in mid-air, Phil only has to duck his head a little to capture Hawkeye’s panting mouth with his own. Kissing him upside down is a little odd, but they manage just fine, Clint making eager little noises into Phil’s mouth when Coulson bites his bottom lip sharply. He has only really teased Clint with the whip until now, and none of the red lines painting his skin will last beyond tonight, which is in itself another torment for Barton, who craves the sweet drugging pain Phil gives him, if he’s good. Tonight, Clint has been very, _very_ good, pushing his body to feats of acrobatic strength for Phil’s amusement, obeying his every whim, holding every agonized stretch and impossible position, eager and quivering with effort, begging in between with the language of his flesh to be allowed to come. Phil has watched the show, enraptured, awed by Barton’s beauty. Gazing on him without touching is Phil’s own torment, because he wants them both past desperation when they finally come together. He’s well aware Clint’s going to come the moment he unsnaps the cock ring. There’s another surprise in his pocket to follow upon the heels of that moment.

For now, though, he gives Clint at least ONE of the things he’s craving, and puts the signal whip to real work, painting the trembling archer’s (upside-down) chest, belly, and back with stinging bites of the nylon cracker at the whip’s business end. This is one of Phil’s prized possessions, a 5-foot whip made by the greatest whip-maker in the world (in his considered opinion), David Murphy. Clint had given it to him for his birthday a couple of months ago. It is made of 16-plait kangaroo hide dyed in two-toned black and purple, with a shot-loaded belly and weighted core. It feels like a live thing in his hands. The more strands used in the plaiting of a whip, the more supple and responsive it is. It’s a joy to wield, accurate and capable of unbelievably fine control. With it Phil can brush Clint’s skin as softly as a kiss, or split it and watch the archer’s blood bead crimson and vital on his shuddering flesh. He doesn’t do this often, for all that Clint likes it when he does so, because he doesn’t like adding to Barton’s scars. Clint has been so unbelievably delicious tonight though, that when he groans and pleads, Phil lets himself enjoy the begging for a few minutes….

“Ohgod, Ohgod….yesssss….Master…..ungh…..love it, love you….please please, more. Ohhhhhh fuck, feels so hot….like nothing else in the world….love when you….hngh….whip me. Yeah….shit…yeah….ohfuck Sir, you’re so goddamn good….Master…please….please bleed me. Just a little. Oh please. Wanna wear your mark….please!”

“Such a good boy for me,” purrs Phil. “All right, you can have your wish, beautiful pet.”

“Ohhhh thank you Sir,” breathes Clint, then cries out in pain as the tip of the whip bites into the bunched muscles over his shoulder blades, two strokes on each side, four small glistening ruby drops that well up and then trickle slowly across the flushed skin. Clint hisses when the sweat he’s worked up burns in the tiny wounds, but his eyes are closed and he’s biting his lip, blissfully riding the pain. The boy is so deep into subspace tonight, Phil’s not sure he could make the exquisite thing cry if he had to. Clint feels pain, but his body only registers it as pleasure, as drowning sensation. His exhaustion, the constant torment of his unslaked arousal, and the long, slow build Phil’s brought him through has him so blissed out he probably barely remembers his own name.

“Ride those bars while I go set something up, baby boy,” Phil growls softly in Clint’s ear. “Give me a good show. Earn your fucking, and if I’m feeling impressed, I’ll let you come.” Clint’s whole body spasms, and Phil can tell that if he wasn’t wearing the ring, he’d come from those words alone, as worked up as he is right now. Instead, he moans softly and hoists himself up. Phil walks to the front of the gym, backwards, so he can watch Clint. It is very late, and SHIELD’s West Coast division is as quiet as it ever gets. Phil has declared this entire floor off-limits to any other personnel. Anyone who wants to work out at 2 in the morning is just going to have to use one of the facilities farther down. Thus floor contains the specialty workout rooms, geared for acrobatics training, martial arts, melee weapons work, and the like. This studio, the gymnastics and acrobatics training facility, is on lockdown until Phil is ready to leave. He’s not in a hurry. He steps to the small desk in the front corner, where a laptop holds the command menu for things like lighting, temperature, and music. Phil hasn’t been playing music, and the lights have been on fairly high, because he’s wanted to see every slide and clench of Clint’s muscles, wanted to hear every gasp and whimper and cry and plea. Now Clint’s just about earned what he’s craving, so he dims the lights and taps the button to start the music selection he’s programmed in earlier. Clint is turning a somersault over the low bar and grasping the upper on the upswing, fluidly transferring to the higher bar. The songs on the list aren’t necessarily to Phil’s taste, but he knows Clint’s going to love them, and has to admit that the hard-driving beat and thrash of the edgy music will set a pretty good stage for filthy sex. When the opening industrial sounding cabasa pattern of Rob Zombie’s _Living Dead Girl_ fill the room, Phil hears Clint mutter, “Fuck yeah,” under his breath.  The playlist consists of Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, Emilie Autumn, Nine Inch Nails, Coal Chamber, the Murderdolls, Static-X and others like them. Phil leans back against the wall to enjoy the sight of Clint, who has flawlessly slid from straight-up acrobatics on the bars into looking like he’s fucking on them, because the music just does that to him. He hangs from the top bar by one hand, pulls up to throw a knee over the bar so that his body is parallel under it, His free hand slides through his damp hair, down his throat, strokes lasciviously down his chest and belly, coming to rest on his crotch, his fingers framing his rigid cock, palming it, his hips writhing and body undulating. Phil hums in approval. If anybody were to bottle Clint Barton, he’d be pure liquid sex. Abruptly, he lets go with his hand, almost seeming as though he’s lost his grip, but his body hangs down, arched in a flawless curve of trembling flesh, head thrown back so his throat is bared in a long, clean line, hand reaching, grasping. His knee slides off the high bar and he snatches the low as he falls, changing the drop to a swing that takes him under the bar and lands him on top of it on the upswing, where he freezes, one hand gripping the bar, his feet perched on top of it (Phil has no idea how he can balance that way), and he crouches there, one hand still free, this time tugging on one of his nipple rings, staring straight into Phil’s eyes, lips parted. He bites his bottom lip, worries at it for a few seconds, then speaks soundlessly, mouthing the words.

“ _Fuck me.”_

At that his body drops again, the other way, swinging up from under the low bar to launch himself upwards again, let go, and grasp the high, his back to Phil now, because he knows Phil really loves the obscenely perfect muscles in his back. He pulls himself up, his body undulating and his ass pumping gently, until his arms are straight, repeating the move he’d done the night he was collared, drawing his body upwards, back even with his arms, then his legs spread slowly, wider and wider, giving Coulson a mouth-watering look at his perfect ass, until he is doing the splits on top of the bar. Then, equally slowly, he pushes his upper body into the air, keeping his legs open, until his arms are straight and his body points at the ceiling.

Phil smiles. So fucking gorgeous. Clint answers his smile with one of his own, but the glint in his eye is frantic. Phil crosses the room, stalking towards Clint, letting his boy see the intent in his eyes. Clint swallows hard, and holds the handstand, but he brings his legs together because he won’t be able to hold the position if he doesn’t. When Phil gets close, he can see the heave of Clint’s chest, hear his breath, ragged and harsh with strain and crippling lust.

“All right, little boy,” he growls. “I’m impressed. Get down.” Never one to pass up an opportunity to show off, Clint lets his body drop out and down, hanging on, so that he turns a straight-armed somersault around the bar, using his weight to power into the upswing and around again. Four times, he swings in a giant circle. Phil steps back a few paces to give him room, smirking at his grandstanding. At the upswing of the fourth giant, Clint lets go of the bar, hurling his body into space. He tucks and does a somersault in the air, then lands heavily in front of Phil, one knee and the opposite hand on the floor, the other knee bent in front of him, other hand behind his back, so that he looks much like a knight kneeling before his liege-lord, shoulders heaving as he gasps for breath, staring up at Phil from under his eyelashes, raw hunger in his gaze.  “Magnificent,” murmurs Phil. He bends down and hooks a finger under Clint’s collar, Clint’s eyelids drift down and he sighs. Coulson tugs gently and the archer rises to his feet. Following obediently as Phil leads him to the pommel horse. There is a high stack of folded gym mats in front of it, so that if he stands on them, the horse is about hip-high for him.

He tugs Clint’s head closer and leans in for a kiss, and it is hungry and rough and Phil loves the way Clint’s mouth tastes, of cherry coke and the chocolate torte they’d had for dessert earlier. Clint muffles a frantic plea, whining into Phil’s mouth.

“I’m going to fuck you now, baby boy. It’s going to feel so fucking good. You’re already wet and open for me. All that needs doing is to take out that plug and fill you right back up with my cock. Is that what you want?”

“Ohgod,” breathes Clint fervently, “ _please!”_

“Have a look at what you’re getting,” says Phil with a wicked smile. God, he’s _dying_ here, but the look on Clint’s face, blank and shocked, followed quickly by a nervous gasp, is worth every second he’s been aching tonight. For when he opens his pants and pulls out his cock, Clint can clearly see the cock ring that Phil has been wearing since not long after he placed Clint’s. The archer’s eye widen when he realizes the significance of this. It means Phil can fuck him as long as he wants without coming. Chuckling, Phil spins Clint around and shoves him facedown over the horse. He jerks the boxer briefs down to the younger man’s knees. The flange of the plug nestled between Clint’s cheeks is obscene. Phil taps it gently, wringing a mewling cry from the upended archer. Because he likes the sound, Phil taps a little harder, then presses. He grasps the flange and twists slowly, the wordless pleas and whines of his boy going straight to his straining cock. He takes his time removing it, letting the buzz torment Clint a little longer before he slowly pulls it all the way out, turning it off and setting it aside on a clean, folded handkerchief. Clint is panting out incoherent wordless entreaties now, and Phil doesn’t keep him waiting.

He lines up his cock, nudging gently at Barton’s slick, stretched hole, then sinks in slow and deep with one long thrust. There’s hardly any resistance, because the plug has prepped him well, but Clint’s hole is still tight and warm inside, gripping his cock hard, clenching and working the length of Phil’s dick as he bottoms out and presses his hips against Clint’s ass. It feels incredible. Snug, hot, slippery and soft, sucking him in when he thrusts, making him gasp. Jesus, Clint’s so hot tonight Phil’d probably already be coming if not for his preventative measure. He fucks long and slow, dragging out and pushing back in lazily, while Clint sobs a little in frustration. Phil knows exactly what he wants to do to the filthy little slut tonight. He’s got nearly the training in self-control Natasha has, so he ignores the urgent goading of his own cock to let _go,_ to free the constriction and spill inside Clint’s tight little hole. He fucks him slow, but presses in hard, fucking him open wider, building an ache in Barton’s ass. He knows that no matter how slow and easy he goes, eventually there will come a time when the archer’s asshole will become overstimulated, and then it will start to be really sore. Clint is nearly hysterical beneath his slow, relentless assault.

“PLEASE,” he cries, his voice tremulous and pained. “Please Master….oh PLEASE I need to COME! Oh god, I’ll do anything! I can’t stand it! Please Sir! Oh please let me come. I’ll die. I need it so bad Please Master, please, please, please let me come!”

Clint hasn’t the slightest idea what’s in store for him. Phil’s chuckling again, despite the insistent demands of his own body, when he reaches around Barton’s shivering body and flicks open the snap on the cock ring with his thumb. Clint’s howl is that of a wounded animal as his release tears through his body like a bullet train, his stretched asshole clenching and milking Phil’s cock as Hawkeye shudders and sobs in relief. His release leaves him drained and sagging limply over the leather pommel horse. Phil doesn’t pause the slow, relentless fucking. Clint whimpers. When he sees Clint begin to support a little of his own weight with his legs again, Phil pulls out abruptly. Clint makes a tiny pained sound. He’s not VERY sore yet, but he’s starting to feel it. Phil taps Clint’s shoulder to get his attention, makes Clint turn around and kneel in front of him. Expecting to be allowed to finish Phil with his mouth instead of having to take him in his oversensitive asshole, Clint starts to lean forward and open his lips. Phil holds him back, instead pulling a tiny glass vial out of his pocket. Clint, more than a little dazed, looks confused.

“You’ll recall the conversation we had about how Banner and Stark seem to keep coming up with oddly useful failures in their experiments?”

“Yes Sir,” answers Clint, a little muzzy.

“This is one I can’t wait to try.” He uncorks the bottle, kneels down in front of Clint. “They were trying to create a vasodilator laced with a dopamine accelerator, as a substance to keep Banner’s blood pressure down and boost his happy thoughts when he’s trying to prevent himself from Hulking.”

Clint’s dazed expression shows that he’s listening but not entirely processing what Phil’s saying to him.

“This is one of the earlier attempts. It doesn’t have the intended effect, but it does have quite an interesting one. Let’s see if you agree,” he comments, pulling a nitrile glove from his pocket and sliding his hand into it.

With that, Phil tilts the bottle and lets the thick oily substance inside drizzle slowly onto Clint’s softening cock. The scent of vanilla and cinnamon fills the air.

“Cookies,” mumbles Clint drowsily. It does, in fact, smell a little like cookies. Phil concentrates on throttling down on the urgent throb of his captive erection. This is too good to miss, and he’s not going to start fucking Clint again until he starts to feel the full effect. For a few seconds, nothing happens. Phil reaches down and, with his protected fingertips, lightly rubs the oily substance into Clint’s penis. Clint’s head lifts slowly, his eyes on Phil’s starting to widen. Phil glances down and sees the archer’s cock twitch and begin to harden again. Clint’s lips part in a round O of surprise.

“Oh look,” murmurs Phil as Clint squirms and rolls his hips upwards towards Phil’s massaging fingers. He takes them away, discarding the glove and hauling Clint to his feet. He pushes Hawkeye back over the pommel horse as Clint starts to whimper, and thrusts his cock back into the archer’s hole. Clint gasps.

“Fuck,” he swears fervently. “What the…what is that stuff, Sir?” he pants, pushing his hips back to meet Phil’s deep, methodical thrusts.

“Hm,” says Phil with amusement as Clint starts to writhe. “Tony calls it Branwyn’s Tears after something in a novel series Pepper likes. It’s…and I’m quoting him, by the way….like Viagra on PCP in Hulk form.”

“Oh god,” whispers Clint, his voice barely audible over the driving throb of the music filling the room. He presses back harder, but Phil holds him in place by his hips, keeping up the ruthless deep slow fuck. Clint reaches back a little and grasps the handles of the horse where his belly rests on it, grinding his hips against the smooth leather surface, panting and making urgent little grunts in his chest. Phil lets him. The effect of the oil is going to be overwhelming enough. And the point, after all, is not to withhold orgasm, but to wring as many from Barton as possible. The first rush of the aphrodisiac pulls Clint under so hard he doesn’t speak, only growls and ruts against Phil and the pommel horse as hard as he can, letting out a choked cry less than five minutes later as he comes again, helplessly, gasping an apology. Phil has never required Clint to ask permission to come, it’s just something Clint seems to want on his own, so he pets the sweaty, shuddering back and soothes him gently, never stilling his rocking thrusts.

“Shh, baby. It’s okay. You don’t need to get permission. Especially not tonight, beautiful boy. You won’t be able to help it. You’re going to come and come. You’ll come for me until you’re begging for it to end. You’ll come til it _hurts._ ”

Clint keens fearfully into his hands as he scrubs them over his red, sweaty face, his hips still rolling to meet Phil’s fucking, almost as though he’s not aware of doing it, not aware he doesn’t even have time to get soft before it’s back again, his cock filling with blood, curving up to smear precome on his belly. He whines.

“I…I’m getting kinda sore, Sir,” he whispers plaintively.

“Mm,” agrees Phil. “I can tell. Your hole’s tightening down on my cock, starting to feel a little swollen.”

“Do you….can you…please Sir, will you come?” he begs. Phil laughs.

“Eventually,” he says evilly, then gasps a little as the tiny, wounded sound Clint makes spears into his guts. He fucks a little harder, and Clint squirms.

“Please Sir,” he pleads. “Please come in me. It’s starting to hurt. Ohhhh Sir, I’m gonna be so sore tomorrow. God, shit, fuck, I….nnng….it’s coming back. Oh god, I need to…I’m gonna come again.”

The frantic, breathless little pleas are more than Phil can stand. He thrusts in a few more times, feeling the faint tremble in Clint’s tight, aching hole, then the firm grasp of him tightening down on Coulson as he comes again with a weak little cry. Phil grits his teeth and groans raggedly, flicking the snap on the ring that’s been holding him back until now, digging his fingers into Clint’s hips and snarling as he empties himself into Clint’s body. Clint’s thanking him gratefully. Phil bows his head, breathing hard, the palms of his hands rubbing gentle circles on Clint’s back, biting his lip because poor Hawkeye thinks he’s getting off the hook now.

By the time Phil’s breathing returns to normal and he slips slowly from Clint’s shuddering body, Barton has started to pant and rock his hips again. Phil just has to watch him for a minute, all that perfect skin with the anthem of Clint’s determination to survive any-fucking-thing the universe throws at him, its language imprinted in his flesh; the parachuting accident, the torture in North Korea…in San Francisco….Kosovo…the bayonet scar from Afghanistan….knife fight in Bolivia….the place he used one of his own arrows to drain the infection out of his leg while he waited for rescue in the jungle in Nicaragua…the guard dog that tried to snack on him in South Africa…every one of them is beautiful to Phil, breathtakingly so, because each healed scar means Clint is alive. Alive and raw from his whip and trembling with effort and whimpering wantonly as he writhes over the horse, craving the friction on his cock. He’s starting to sound panicky. God, he’s fucking gorgeous when he’s frantic.

“Christ, Clint,” says Phil feelingly. “You are the most beautiful goddamn thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Master,” whimpers Clint, and _oh_ doesn’t it just thrill him down to his toes when Clint says it, every goddamn time, that this deadly and amazing human being would turn to him for not just to pass the time, some companionship, a roll in the hay…but would hurl himself utterly uninhibited at his feet and beg to be owned? He reaches for the plug and picks it up. When Clint sees it, his eyes widen and he starts to shake his head.

“No,” he begs. “no, no, no, please! I can’t. I’m really sore, Sir. Please, can I….just let me touch myself…it’ll stop soon, right? Please?”

Phil grins. Clint bites his lip and shudders.

“Eyes front, boy,” he snarls, and Clint obeys instantly, trembling. When he feels the tip of the plug press against his used hole, Barton tenses and whimpers again.

“No,” he breathes pleadingly.

“Oh yes,” Phil assures him, and presses the plug in firmly. When the widest part stretches his hole open, Clint hisses in pain and writhes, rutting himself harder against the pommel horse. Phil decides to take pity on the training equipment and pulls Clint off the apparatus, laying him down on his back on the mats. Clint wines protestingly as he loses the surface friction against his weeping cock. Phil turns on the vibration and Clint’s eyes roll back into his skull. Phil grins, because Jesus, he’s just so debauched, fucked out and blind and still needing, aching, straining. Fantastic. He angles the plug and Clint howls, his body coming up off the mat, supported by his heels and the back of his head, cock twitching as he comes for the fourth time. He’s already wrung almost dry, and the orgasm lasts longer than the seed that spills from him. He collapses, sucking in deep ragged breaths, whimpering and shaking his head when Phil twists the plug and presses hard. The difference in pain and pleasure in Clint’s brain is very slim indeed, so Phil knows damn well that it’s the ache in his hole as much as the prostate stimulation that’s keeping him hard (well, and this wonderfully diabolical accidental aphrodisiac). He leans over Clint, arm between their bodies, pressing hard against the rubber flange so that the toy grinds brutally into Barton’s ass, poised over the younger man’s torso, staring into his flushed, sweaty face when Clint opens his eyes to look at him, leaning down to lick the single tear that escapes from his lust-black eyes. Phil studies the play of emotion across Clint’s face, enraptured, as he presses rhythmically against the plug and uses his free hand to slowly jack his lover off. Clint’s expressions flashing from agony to mind-drugging pleasure to fear to hunger are endlessly fascinating. He’s a little scared, has no control over his body whatsoever, he’s really sore because Phil has taken great care to rub his asshole raw with his cock and the vibrating plug, and he is in heaven as he begs and begs for mercy.

“How is it, little boy?” he asks Clint softly, after Clint has come again, essentially dry by now. Clint is, for this moment, able to let his body sag back onto the mats and try to catch his breath.

“Oh god, Sir,” he whispers, his voice awed and shredded with his howls and constant mindless babbling, “You may kill me, but what a way to fuckin’ go.”

“Can you come one more time for me?” he asks tenderly, because Clint’s totally wanton display and the way he’s lying there so helpless are fucking inspiring. Clint presses his lips together to suppress a sob as Phil’s words cause his wrung-out cock to twitch again.

“I don’t know,” he says in a tiny, helpless voice.

“You’re going to want to try, Clint,” he purrs, stroking gentle fingers through sweaty, tangled hair, wheat gold in the sun but gone almost black with wet now. “Because I’m hard again.”

Clint begs and cries and finally screams when Phil turns him over on his stomach and presses his cock into the younger man’s raw, swollen, used asshole. Phil holds him down and fucks into him carefully but determinedly. He doesn’t try to cause Clint more pain, but he knows his baby boy is horribly sore and that nothing can prevent it from hurting some. He doesn’t fail to notice, however, that when Clint finally screams, he’s arching his hips and bucking his ass up into Phil’s thrusts. Because the knowledge that he has completely _wrecked_ Clint, the way he whines and sobs a little and pleads so earnestly for mercy, because he can feel the way Clint’s hole quivers when he slides in and out, are intoxicating, and because he’s not doing this to actually damage the archer, he doesn’t fight the pleasure that rises up to swamp him after a few minutes, jabbing his cock in just a little cruelly when he comes, gasping, and wringing a truly obscene, pained sound from Clint’s throat. He pulls out, uses the handkerchief to clean them both a little, and rolls Clint back over onto his back. Clint’s eyes are closed, his skin flushed and damp, his chest heaves with the effort to draw a deep breath. His cock, looking a little raw, is still hard. Because he’s so pretty and helpless and fragile lying there like that, Phil can’t resist, wants to taste him (well, really wants to bite him, but thinks that might be more than Clint can take tonight). He leans down and sucks Clint’s cock into his mouth, wrenching a shocked cry from Hawkeye’s damp, reddened lips. Phil rolls his eyes up to watch Clint’s face as he sucks him down. Coulson doesn’t do this often, because it makes Clint feel vaguely weird, due to the fact that he thinks he should be servicing Phil, not the other way around, but truth be told, Phil loves sucking cock. Especially Clint Barton’s cock. The shocked expression on his face, the adorable inner struggle on his face as he tries to decide if he should be enjoying it this much, the way he starts to arch his hips up into Coulson’s face and then stops himself, flustered, because he can’t believe it’s okay for him to be forceful….these are delicious to Phil, as is the taste of Clint himself, not just the salt of his skin and the moisture leaking from his cock, but something undefinable that is unspeakably marvelous on Phil’s tongue. He thinks privately to himself and never says so out loud, but the taste of Clint’s cock is almost sweet, and he savors it, rolling his tongue around the head, lapping at the sensitive underside, scraping lightly with his teeth (Clint goes absolutely wild when Phil uses his teeth), then slowly, carefully, bearing down, gently closing his jaws until the pressure of his teeth in Clint’s flesh makes Barton arch his back and hiss, then pressing a little harder until at last Clint cries out, “enough, enough, please!” and Phil can tell he really means it, and backs off, panting, letting Clint writhe and squirm, and then he goes back at it, sucking deep and hard now, using his hand to help, growling softly in his throat when Clint tries to protest, pinning his hips to the mat with his other hand. He pulls back again and rolls his eyes at Clint again, glaring.

“You’ll take what I give you, boy, and like it,” he snarls.

“Master,” whimpers Clint, “I can’t. Please….don’t make me. It hurts. I don’t think I can….c…come again….ohhhhhh fuckkkkk…” His breathless plea is strangled to nothing but helpless noises as Phil sucks him all the way down, holding him down, and growling warningly around Clint’s trembling cock. That’s what finally does it, the threat and the forcefulness, and he spasms, lets out a choked, pained groan, and Phil tastes the faint surge of moisture on his tongue, the final few drops of pained pleasure he wrings from Clint’s utterly wrecked body like quicksilver in his mouth. He swallows, then moves up to lie down next to Clint, pulling the archer’s trembling, limp body into his arms. Clint protests weakly, that he is disgusting and doesn’t want to ruin Phil’s clothes. He’s sweaty and covered in come and there are four spots of drying blood on his back, and Phil thinks he is the most perfect human being he’s ever seen. Clint shakes his head and pushes weakly at Phil’s chest. Never let it be said that Phil Coulson doesn’t know his agents (even if they’re not, you know, his AGENT anymore). Managing Clint Barton is an entire entry in Phil’s resume all by itself.

“Hush,” he says sternly. “Come here. Don’t make me spank you.” Clint sighs and lets himself be pulled close, giving in with good grace and burrowing into Phil like a blanket. Phil loves this, the only time Clint is ever this completely vulnerable and childish and unspeakably adorable, nuzzling and muttering and wriggling like he can get any closer to Phil. He’s pretty sure he’d sell his soul for this, these moments after he has taken Clint apart bit by bit, and it is in his arms ONLY that Clint puts himself back together, but for a few minutes is a fragile and precious thing that Phil holds close and keeps safe.

“Tamorrmph,” mumbles Clint.

“Hm?” Phil asks idly, carding his fingers through Clint’s wet hair, smirking a little to himself as he considers the fact that the clothes Clint didn’t want to ruin are actually, for once (because Phil had, after all, planned all of this in advance) a threadbare old grey Harvard t-shirt and truly ancient pair of jeans, destined for the rag bag. That had, in fact, been temporarily returned to duty FROM the rag bag for this occasion. What’s Clint saying?

“Tomorra,” Clint mutters again, still burrowing.

“Tomorrow _what,_ Clint,” he asks indulgently.

“C’n I make you spank me tomorra?” comes the sleepy reply.

Yes, thinks Phil Coulson. Definitely the luckiest man on any planet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phil and Clint have a very unique relationship in that they have known each other intimately but not sexually for a long time. Their insights into and understanding of one another are the stuff of fairy tales. Clint trusts Phil not to push him past his limits, and Phil would cut off his own arm before he would.
> 
> These are not real people!
> 
> Real people are rarely mind-readers. Your Dom won't know what you need unless you tell them. He or she may not be able to tell if you've taken more than you can handle unles you let them know! Your sub may find it difficult to refuse certain acts being perpetrated upon their bodies because their instinct is to accept whatever you wish to do to them. That is SO dangerous.
> 
> Don't take stuff for granted. Talk to each other, all the time. What you hate or can't tolerate today may change next week. What you enjoy or want today may be too much tomorrow.


	12. Part Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil has an interesting request.

It’s the sort of evening Clint never would have thought he’d enjoy, but has come to find out he really does. Phil has gotten done with work at a really reasonable hour, and after fixing them dinner (Phil’s a very good cook), is relaxing with Clint on the sofa, where they are sort of leaning on each other and watching a movie. It’s one they’ve both seen before, so Phil is doing the New York Times crossword puzzle and Clint is working with the exercise putty in between stretching and massaging the scar tissue in his hand with vitamin e oil. There is a lazy air of  contentment about them both that Clint still occasionally finds surprising. This ought to make him feel restless, but it doesn’t. After a while, he becomes aware that Phil is watching him over the edge of the folded newspaper, his reading glasses pushed down his nose a little because he only needs them for close-up, not for looking at Clint. His stare is strangely intense for the casual circumstances. This is not a bad thing, though. Usually when Phil looks intense, something interesting is getting ready to happen to him. He sets the putty in its container and looks back, smiling a little.

“Sir?” he asks, because it’s really obvious there’s SOMEthing on Phil’s mind.

“Have you ever thought about fucking me?” Phil asks quietly, his sharp blue eyes on Clint’s face, watching his expression.

Clint’s brain shorts out abruptly once it processes Coulson’s words. He gapes at Phil in astonishment, because he understands perfectly what Phil said, he just can’t BELIEVE he’s said it.

“I….what?” This is not a particularly articulate response, but Clint’s brain is still stuck in a few seconds ago. Phil laughs a little at the poleaxed expression on his face.

“I’m going to take that as a no,” he says on the end of the chuckle.

“Fuck,” says Clint.

“Yes, that’s the idea,” agrees Coulson, who is now smirking, and Clint doesn’t think it’s very nice. He shoots Phil a dirty look.

“You can’t just SAY things like that, Sir,” he protests weakly. Because now that it’s out there, he IS thinking about it, of course, and he really needs somebody to tell him if the fact that his dick’s getting hard is okay or not.

“I believe I’m not the one in this relationship who has to be careful what they say,” Phil responds, and the bastard is really getting a huge kick out of Clint’s confusion.

“How the hell am I supposed to answer a question like that? Sir?” demands Clint hotly, and he knows his ears are getting red, but shit, this is just weird!

“Truthfully, I’d hope,” says Phil, who is now not laughing but Clint can tell from the way his eyes wrinkle at the corners that he’s having to work at it a little.

“Well, I’m thinking about it _now_ ,” he admits uncomfortably, staring at his hand and flexing it, not feeling like he can stand to look Phil in the face just now.

“If you find this too distressing, Clint,” says Coulson gently, “we can just drop it.”

“No,” says the archer, squirming a little, because if Phil’s asking, there’s a good reason. “It just doesn’t feel right. You’re the top.” He means sexually, he’d use the word Dominant or Master if he was referring to the relationship.

“I do hope you’re not worrying that this means I’m going to stop reaming your ass open anytime I want, little boy,” purrs Phil, which is _not fair_ because Clint’s dick is hard and now its confused about what it’s hard FOR. “I’m not intimating that at all.”

“Unngh,” says Clint. Phil loses the battle with his laughter and chuckles again, reaching out and hauling Clint up against him, turning him so his shoulders are against Phil’s chest, his head leaning back on Phil’s shoulder. Clint squirms until he’s comfortable, and also partly because he’s NOT. Phil’s hand comes around his hip, thumb going under the edge of Clint’s t-shirt to brush warm skin, then slides around to palm his dick through his jeans. Clint rocks his hips and sighs.

“Just because I’ve always topped doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy receiving now and then,” says Phil gently, and it’s a little easier like this, in his arms, and not having to look at his face, which Phil knows perfectly well and that’s why he’s arranged them this way.

“Okay,” Clint agrees awkwardly.

“It sort of feels like you don’t hate the idea,” Coulson continues, still pressing the palm of his hand against Clint’s erection. Clint presses up into his hand a little.

“I guess,” he admits reluctantly. “It just feels like I ought to….not be allowed? Like a sub should never DO something like that.”

“Whyever not?”

“There’s not a reason. Not if you want it, Sir. I….ngh…if you keep doing that I’m gonna come, Sir. It feels….naughty? I guess? For me to get hard thinking about it.”

“Are you worried you’ll get in trouble for it?”

Clint frowns.

“No…or, well, not really. I mean, obviously you’ve been thinking about it if you’re asking me, cause you never bring up new stuff out of the blue until you’ve thought it over yourself first, I guess the naughty part would be if I thought about it on my own, like I tried to GET you to let me, and I know that’s not what’s happening, it just sort of threw me, is all, cause I had no idea you’d ever….”

“Want to get fucked up my ass?” says Phil mildly.

“Guh,” whimpers Clint, squirming some more. “You’re an asshole, Sir.”

“Believe me,” purrs Phil, his lips brushing the shell of Clint’s ear and making him shiver, “I’m going to be telling you what to do the whole time. If you want to, of course. I won’t make you, Clint.”

“I…” gasps the archer, “Oh fuck, Sir….if you want me to….yes Sir.”

“Would you like me to tell you what I want?” asks Phil, and Clint wriggles  a little and nods. He’s a very vocal person. He loves to talk, which is something handlers always hated about him. He’s always been private, and spent more hours hiding in rafters and ceilings than relating to coworkers, but on ops, he can never stay off coms, pointing out ridiculous things the mark or passersby are doing, making jokes, asking embarrassing personal questions. It helps him not get twitchy when he has to stay perfectly still for hours on end. As a lover, he is equally vocal. No one, however, has ever complained about that one. He grins a little to himself, remembering being seventeen and walking past the dancers’ dressing tent one night before a show and hearing his own name. He’d paused, of course, because who wouldn’t?

“I understand what you mean about Hawkeye now, Lynn,” Darla had said, and Clint could hear the smirk in her voice.

“Sinful, isn’t it, what that boy can do with that body?”

“Jesus Christ, you’re not kidding. He uses that tongue like he really does love it, and most men don’t, or else they just do it so they can pretend they put your needs first long enough to justify comin’ too soon,” sneered Darla, laughing sarcastically.

“Goes for as long as you want,” sighed Lynn, and Clint had grinned to himself. Lynnie had been a lot of fun. “And that aint all he can do with that tongue, either. Did he talk to you?”

“Fuckin yeah,” swore Darlene reverently. “I swear to God, I came once just listenin’ to him talk. The things he _says,_ Jesus!”

He’d thought back to the night before when Darla had seduced him into her trailer, thinking about what he’d said, whispering between kisses and strokes of his tongue on her clit, murmuring filth in her ear while he finger fucked her, begging her to give it to him, come for him, how good her pussy felt, how he’d go down on her again after he fucked her, lick his come out of her, as long as she wanted. He’d felt himself start to get turned on again, had gotten back to work as they moved on to a different subject, wondering if maybe they’d be up for a threesome some night (they had been). Clint’s always been a slut like that, and talking dirty is one of his favorite things. Tasha loves it too, curses at him while he fucks her and whispers smut in her ear, egging him on. Phil’s certainly never complained, loves when Clint begs, allows him to be as foul-mouthed and abandoned as he wants. Phil also knows perfectly well that Clint loves it just as much when Phil talks dirty too, because it’s such a startling contrast to his usual demeanor.

“Have you never…” Phil asks suddenly.

“You know I’d never been with a man before you, Sir,” he says.

“I know that. I mean, you’re such a wanton little thing, it’s hard to imagine there’s anything you haven’t tried.” Clint has to laugh a little at that, because yeah.

“I know, right?” he says, a little sheepishly. “It’s true though, I’ve never….um….well obviously not with a man. I’ve been with a couple of women where we tried, but one of them decided she didn’t like it, so we stopped, and the other one it turned out had some kinda awful repressed abuse thing going on so we were getting all hot and heavy, and my fingers in her ass were making her wild, but as soon as I started, and I was going really slow too, she just freaked. I felt so bad for her. Never saw her again after that night, I guess she was embarrassed, and I’ve always hoped she ended up okay. Um…I don’t know if it’s okay to talk to you about Tasha too much….but I guess so, she doesn’t seem to care, and she sure seems to want to hear about stuff YOU do to me…” he laughs a little. He never wants to betray Natasha’s trust, and she’s such a private person, but he’s pretty sure the same rules don’t apply in this case. Although the times in which all three of them are together and Tasha and Phil share him are fairly rare (though oh fuck yeah he wishes it could be more often), they’re still all involved in each other’s lives in so many ways he’s probably just better off being okay with the open bookedness of it rather than trying to second guess himself. “Anyway, she wants to, I think. She’s said a thing or two when we’re in the middle of stuff, we just haven’t gotten around to it yet. It’s…not that I don’t want to.”

“Will it bother her, if you do that with  me?”

“Since I figure she assumes like you did that I already _have,_ I don’t think so.” Phil’s fingers stroke through his hair and he closes his eyes and hums contentedly. Then Phil puts his mouth close to Clint’s ear again and starts to whisper.

“All right then. We’ll go to the bedroom, and take off our clothes. I assume there will be touching going on during this process, since you’re the most skin hungry man I’ve ever known.” His fingertips stroke down Clint’s throat to illustrate his point, and Clint shudders. He feels Phil’s lips curve in a smile against his ear. “I’ll give you the bottle of lube, and I’ll lie down on the bed on my stomach. You’ll need to use plenty, Clint, make your fingers nice and slick, pour some of it on me too, let it run down the crease, rub your finger there, feel it slippery between my cheeks.”

Clint’s stomach is tying itself in knots already. He has no idea how he’s even going to make it to the point Phil’s describing. As though reading his thoughts, Phil’s other hand, the one not currently loosely clasped around his throat, holding his head close to Phil’s mouth, the one he’d been palming Clint’s dick with a few minutes ago, thumbs open his jeans.

“Um…Sir…” he protests weakly. “I’m not gonna last long for you when we….ah…..if you do that…”

“Silly boy,” whispers Phil, and the tip of his tongue teases the rim of Clint’s ear, “I’m going to make you come while I talk to you. That way….” Clint’s zipper is tugged down, and Phil’s warm hand burrows into his pants. He’s not wearing underwear, which isn’t at all uncommon for him, so Phil gets a hand on his cock pretty easily. “When you fuck me….” Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, he’s gonna die. Right here and now. Phil pulls him free of his jeans and strokes, and Clint groans. “It will last and last, and I’ll feel it….for days.”

“Fuck fuck fuck,” pants Clint, biting his lip and arching into Phil’s hand.

“You’ve fingered an asshole before Clint, and they’re not all that different, women and men, on the outside anyway. I’ll want you to go slow. It’s been a long time for me. It’s not just that though, baby. I want to savor it, the way the tip of your finger feels teasing me. I want to enjoy every moment of anticipation, want you to take forever to slide your finger in. I’ll help you find the right spot to press, beautiful boy, and that’s where we’re different from women. You can feel it, you know, the prostate gland. It’s a little bump, and you know how it feels when it’s touched. Like electricity, so good.”

Phil jacks him off slowly as he speaks, and though Clint is gasping and he can already feel the insidious pleasure of release warming in his spine, he’s concentrating as hard as he can on his Master’s words, because if Phil wants this, then he’s determined to make it exactly like he’s describing, give him exactly what he asks for.

“I’ll want you to fuck me with your finger, slow and easy, and you’ll learn how to curl it, just a little, at the end of that stroke in, so it feels so good I’ll be gasping and pressing up into your hand.”

“God,” whispers Clint fervently. He’s never going to look at anal sex the same way again, ever. Phil makes a satisfied humming sound in his chest that Clint feels vibrate against his back.

“You’ll be careful with the second finger. You have to lay one on top of the other, a little, so you don’t scratch that tender, sensitive skin with a fingernail. That’s when you’ll start to stretch me, baby, start to open my hole so it can take your cock.”

“Jesus,” Clint gasps, hips arching, and Phil squeezes a little harder, giving his wrist a twist on the up-stroke, dragging his thumb over the head of Clint’s cock.

“Are you gonna come for me, little boy?” Coulson breathes in his ear. “Thinking about stretching me out, about sliding your cock into your Master’s hole? I’m so _tight_ , Clint…it’s been _years._ Just imagine how it’s going to feel. Once my asshole starts to relax, and you can slip that third finger in between the other two…  I’ll feel it then. Clint. I’ll moan for you when I feel the stretch. Just for you, because I love you, and I trust you, and I haven’t wanted this with anyone else in so, so long. Once you can finger fuck me with three, I’ll be ready. You’ll need to add some more lube then, and pour some in your hand, slide it down your cock…you don’t know how that feels, love…when you squeeze and slide your cock through your slippery fist and all you’re thinking about it how now….oh now…you’re going to push into that tight, warm hole and it’s going to feel so fucking good….”

“Oh God,” groans Clint, and the warmth in his spine grows teeth and claws.

“Come for me, boy. Thinking about _fucking_ me…Clint….once you’re in me….once I’m taking your cock….ohhh Clint….I like it _rough_.”

Clint cries out, his body tensing and shuddering as his seed boils up through his cock and spills over Phil’s hand and his jeans. Phil holds him close, smiling, a low growl of pleasure in his throat while he watches. He leans over to the end table and grabs a napkin that’s sitting there from the meal they’d shared earlier, wiping Clint’s come off both of them.

“Jesus FUCK Sir,” says Clint fervently. “You’re fuckin’ dangerous. Remind me to never ever offer to drive if we go on a road trip. If you get bored, I’ll end up killing us both!” Phil chuckles, but his eyes are dark and shining with desire.

“Bedroom,” he growls softly. “Now.”

At the tone in his voice, any concerns Clint may have had over being able to get hard again in time to fuck Phil by the time he’s ready for it fly right out the window.

They undress each other, hands and fingers stroking the skin they unveil, taking their time and appreciating each other’s bodies. Clint knows that sometimes Phil worries about being too old for him, but that’s ridiculous to him. Phil’s body is amazing. There’s not anything soft about him at all. His shoulders are broad, his chest deep and muscled, tapering down to a trim waist topped by six pack abs. Clint has been admiring how Phil’s ass looks in his perfectly tailored trousers for a long time. Years, if he’s honest, telling himself it was just appreciation for another person in nice shape, the way he appreciates Thor’s beauty. He was kidding himself, of course. Phil does, however, have a very fine ass, round and taut, and it feels great in his hands when he squeezes. Jesus, he thinks dazedly. I’m going to fuck him. Can this be happening?

But it is, because Phil’s handing him the bottle of lube, and kissing him, his mouth hungry and urgent, his tongue sweeping inside Clint’s mouth, teeth nipping, and Phil’s breathing hard. He takes Clint’s hand and tugs him to the bed, their mouths still locked together. Once he’s lying down, Phil breaks the kiss and rolls over on his stomach. He looks over his shoulder at Clint, who is staring at him transfixed, the bottle all but forgotten in his hand.

“Do you remember how I told you?” he asks, and Clint comes back into focus.

“Yes Sir,” he replies earnestly, because he does. While Phil watches avidly, he pops the lid and squeezes the silky fluid out onto his first two fingers, rubbing them together to coat them. Holding his breath, because he can’t believe he’s really doing it, he gently lays the palm of his hand down on Phil’s right buttock, pressing a little so it opens him just slightly. He squeezes again, watching enraptured as the shining drops hit right at the top of the crease of Phil’s ass (he has dimples there! How did Clint not know this?) and glide down into the shadowed valley between his cheeks. Phil sighs.

“Touch me, Clint,” he whispers. Clint’s hands are shaking a little, but he does it. Gently, a little hesitantly, he touches the tip of his index finger to the place the drops of lube had fallen, right at the top, and slides his finger down, following its path. It’s very warm between Coulson’s cheeks, and wet with the slick he’s put there. His fingertip grazes the little crinkled rosebud of Phil’s hole, and both of them suck in their breaths sharply. Fascinated, Clint circles the little hole with the barest brush of his finger. Phil makes a sound and opens his legs farther. Clint closes his eyes and swallows. He’s not altogether sure Phil’s right about how long this is going to last since Clint has already come. Gently, he presses down just a bit with his fingertip, feeling the puckered flesh part just a bit. He eases back, strokes again, then presses a little harder. Phil’s right about this part…it doesn’t feel any different from fingering a woman’s asshole, except that it’s PHIL. It’s Phil, and he hardly dares to breathe. Realizes, in fact, that he isn’t, and gasps.

“Put your finger in me,” whispers Phil, rolling his hips a little.

“Yes Sir,” Clint replies, and slowly, so slowly he thinks he may die, he eases his index finger past the opening of Coulson’s hole, feels the tight grasp of his sphincter muscle tense up. It quivers, and Clint marvels at how that feels, then relaxes enough for his finger to sink in. Phil groans softly and presses back against him, until Clint’s finger is in all the way to his knuckle, his hand nestled between Phil’s buttocks.

“Twist your finger, slowly, feeling with your fingertip. You’ll….ohh….you’ll know when you find the right spot, it’s a raised bump, on the fro…. _ohhhhh.”_

Clint’s pretty sure he’s found it when Phil’s head lifts off the bed and his back arches. Clint’s got one too. He’s familiar with the anatomy. And the sensation. Knows a hard spear of pleasure lances through Phil’s body when his finger curls, presses. He drags his finger back out slowly, marveling at the squeeze and drag against the skin of his finger. He stops just before the very tip of his finger slips out, wiggles it for a second, then pushes back in, curling at the end to drag and press and make Phil sigh and whisper.

“Yes,” sighs Coulson, “Oh yes. That feels so nice.”

Clint uses just his index finger to work Phil’s hole for what feels like forever and no time at all. He thinks he could watch the way the muscles in Phil’s back tense and relax along with each thrust, the way his fingers flex a little, and the way his breath sounds just a little ragged. When they couple, and Phil is fucking him, he’s usually already so far gone that these sorts of details escape him. Plus, it’s very different being on the giving side. The sensation and the arousal aren’t so….immediate. He can absorb it all, take it in, be fascinated by how it feels, how Phil responds. Finally, when Phil is rocking his hips in time to Clint’s fingering, Phil looks over his shoulder again. His pupils are dilated, his lips parted.

“Clint,” he says urgently, “more. Give me your second finger.”

Fuck, he loves this. It’s not how he’d feared at all, that topping would make him feel strange about their dynamic. It doesn’t. Phil is still solidly in charge. Clint loves the way he directs and orders his own debauchery. He pulls his finger out and adds a little more lube. Phil hasn’t asked for it yet, but Clint wants no chance of even the slightest twinge of pain. He doesn’t want to…no, he doesn’t think he CAN hurt Phil, except possibly for the times they’re fucking and he loses himself and digs in with his fingernails or bites down on Phil’s wrist or arm.

Carefully, he crosses his second finger over the top of his index, so that only one fingernail protrudes, and is the one which will enter first, so that he can angle his fingertip in such a way that the edge can’t scrape or catch. He looks at Phil, who is panting a little and almost seems to be vibrating with eagerness. Seized by and urge he can’t explain, he gently presses Coulson’s cheeks apart with his palms and leans down. He swipes the tip of his tongue over Phil’s twitching asshole. Phil sucks in his breath with a hiss and groans. Clint hums with pleasure at the reaction and does it again, laving the hole with his tongue. It’s….different. Phil had showered before dinner, so he’s clean, but there is still a faint tang of sweat, a mildly sour taste. It’s not unpleasant though. Not like he’d wondered if it might be. He tickles with the tip of his tongue, flickering fast over the little whorl of flesh like he does over Tasha’s clit. Then he stabs at the opening, pressing his tongue just inside, and flexes it. Phil curses softly and creatively, and Clint smiles. Yeah, he’s doing this again for sure. Rimming Phil doesn’t feel at all like he’s topping, it’s like he’s servicing him, worshiping him with his tongue. Still, Phil has demanded his second finger. He sits back and wipes saliva off his mouth with the back of his hand, pressing his fingers back to Phil’s entrance. With a slow twist, he eases the tips of both fingers past the little pucker. Phil grunts a little, and Clint can feel that the ring of muscle inside him stretches more, feels tighter, resists opening up more now than it did with one finger. He works his fingers in patiently and carefully, catching his breath a little at the faint, fluttery grip and clutch of Phil’s asshole.

“Fuck, Sir,” he sighs. “Does this feel as awesome as it looks?”

“Yessssss,” Phil groans. Then, “You can go a little faster, you’re not hurting me.”

Obediently, Clint presses a little harder, and Phil’s right. Once the tips of his fingers breach the muscle, it doesn’t grip as tightly as he slides them further in. He slides in as far as his fingers will go, nudges Phil’s sweet spot, and then holds still. It’s a heady feeling, the rhythmic grip as Phil’s asshole works around his fingers.

“Mm, feels like your hole’s sucking on my fingers, Sir,” he says hoarsely. If this is as hot to Phil as it is to him, he can’t imagine how Phil ever manages to prep him at all rather than just being overcome by lust and plowing into Clint like a madman. His dick is already more than half-hard again. If Phil hadn’t brought  him off on the couch, he’d be coming all over the bedspread with no effort at all.

“Clint,” says Phil.

“Yes Sir?”

“ _Move. Them.”_

“Yes Sir.”

Still slowly and carefully, Clint finger fucks Coulson with two fingers, and it doesn’t take long at all before Phil’s ass relaxes even more.

“Good,” sighs Phil, shifting and raising his hips to meet the inward push of Clint’s hand. “Now, really slowly, spread your fingers apart just a little, like a pair of scissors.”

Clint does, and stares in awe at the way the tight ring of Phil’s hole thins and stretches as his fingers open. Phil pants a little, and Clint freezes immediately the instant he detects a faint whine in Phil’s breathing.

“There,” says Phil through his teeth. “Hold right there.”

“I’m not hurting you, am I?” cries Clint in alarm, shifting to pull back.

“No!” says Phil sharply. “No, don’t stop, just hold still, wait until you feel the stretch not be any effort anymore. It….it doesn’t hurt…it just stings a little, but it’s a good sting. If you spread your fingers more, you’d hurt me a little. This….this is fine. This is perfect.”

And after less than a minute, Clint does indeed feel Phil’s sphincter muscle soften around his fingers, feels that he’s not having to flex quite as hard to keep the muscle open. Phil nods at him, jerks his chin to show Clint he should proceed. Clint repeats the pattern he used with his index finger, pumping slow and easy, tease the sweet spot, twist just a little. Only this time, he adds a little scissoring of his fingers every few thrusts, until there is no resistance to the intrusion, or the stretching.

“God, Clint, you’re perfect,” mutters Phil, and Clint feels like he’s won a medal. It’s _awesome._ “Do three.”

“Yes Master.”

He applies more lubricant once again, because what can it hurt, and then gently, painstakingly, he makes a triangle out of his first three fingers, and eases into Phil’s ass while Phil mutters obscenities and ruts a little against the bed. He tries very hard not to hurt Phil, but he’s not absolutely sure he succeeds, because when he gets to the thickest point of the three digits, Phil keens a little into his pillow.

“Sir,” whimpers Hawkeye in distress.

“ _No_ ,” snarls Phil. “it’s just been a while. You’re doing fine, baby. You’re amazing.”

“Thank you Sir,” he replies. He has to take Phil’s word for it. They don’t lie to each other. It sort of looks and sounds like he’s hurting him a little, but trusts that Phil will tell him if he does.

He goes even slower with three, really, really,  agonizingly slow. He can’t bear to hurry, and anyway, Phil seems to revel in every second of it, so why not give him lots and lots of seconds of it? He has no idea how much time passes this way, his fingers carefully stretching Phil open, him watching the rim of Phil’s hole thinning as his fingers sink in. It looks so filthy, he realizes he’s completely hard now, and he leans down and flickers the tip of his tongue around the place where his fingers hold Phil open, tickling and stroking that tightly stretched ring of skin. Phil moans loudly when he feels Clint’s warm, wet tongue circle his asshole around the fingers opening him up.

“G….going off….script….” he gasps. Clint pulls back in alarm.

“Oh God, Sir! I….I’m sorry!”

Phil huffs out a labored laugh.

“Not…objecting,” he chuckles breathlessly. “Great im…improvisation.” Relieved, Clint returns to what he was doing, just flat _loving_ the sexy noises Phil’s making. Little sighs and groans and whispered curses. He thinks he could do this for hours. Phil, however, is not quite so content to wait that long. “Clint,” he grits out between his teeth about five minutes later, during which time Clint hasn’t stopped steadily, carefully working him with three fingers and the occasional flicker of his tongue, “I want your cock in me. Fuck me, baby boy, now.” Clint whimpers.

“Yes Sir.”

Phil’s right. He’s certainly used lube on his dick before, but doing it now, the little puddle of it warming in his palm, the way it feels to squeeze his hand around his cock, sliding his fist down and back up, twisting, making sure it’s everywhere, while he’s thinking about WHY he’s doing it, just floors him. He adds more of the slippery stuff to Phil’s hole too, probably more than he needs, but he doesn’t think it’s possible to be too careful. Breathlessly, he inches forward between Phil’s legs to get closer to him, and Phil spreads them even wider, arching his back a little, and Clint can’t even breathe, can’t believe he’s doing this. He leans forward, resting his weight on one hand, while he uses the other to guide his cock between Phil’s cheeks, freezing like he’s been shot when he feels himself pressing up against Coulson’s hole.

“Fuck,” he breathes, shaking a little. He doesn’t think he’s been this nervous since he lost his virginity. What if he does it wrong? What if he hurts Phil?

“It’s okay, baby,” says Phil encouragingly. “You’re fine. Be with me, Clint. I want to feel you inside me.”

What else can Clint do but give this man what he asks for? Trembling a little, he presses himself down slowly. When Phil’s hole parts around the head of his cock, gripping tighter than anything he’s ever felt, because face it, women’s cunts are made for this, and assholes aren’t, exactly, so the flesh doesn’t accommodate as easily. God. Fuck. Shit. The slippery lubrication in direct contrast to the fierce clutch of the muscle opening around him feels so fucking good he can’t believe people do this and manage not to come in like, ten seconds. Then he realizes he’s not going to, because he’s so focused on doing this right for Phil that even though it is one of the most incredible things he’s ever felt, his own arousal is taking a back seat. He grits his teeth while he slowly works his way inside Phil’s ass, struggling against the urge to just sink in and have him. Phil is lifting his hips and whispering to Clint between gasps and little hums of pleasure.

“That’s it, baby, you feel so good….oh….God, Clint….come on, love, give me your cock….ungh….yes. Shit. Yes….”

Clint’s concentrating so hard on going slow, on making sure the noises Phil’s making are good ones and not pain sounds, that it surprises him when he realizes he’s there, all the way inside, his balls pressed up against Phil’s ass, his entire cock surrounded by unbelievably tight heat.

“ _Phil,”_ he breathes in wonder. When Phil chuckles a little breathlessly, it makes his hole clench and Clint whimpers.

“Ohh,” Phil sighs then. “You feel so good, filling me up, stretching me open. Don’t move for a minute, okay? I want to just feel you. And…I better have a minute to get used to it too.”

“Does it hurt?” asks Clint anxiously, holding himself as still as he does when he’s on sniper. Phil makes a considering noise..

“Hm. Th…that’s not exactly a sim…simple answer, “ he says. “Does it hurt when I fuck you?”

“Yes,” says Clint, horrified, because a lot of the time it REALLY hurts when Phil fucks him, and if that’s what he’s doing to Coulson right now, he’s out of this. Nope, not okay. Not one bit okay. Phil chuckles again, and Clint gasps. “May…maybe you can not….do the laughing thing?”

“Mm,” says Phil noncommittally. “Okay, perhaps that wasn’t a good analogy. It…doesn’t hurt, exactly. It….it’s on the verge of hurting, a little. I said it’s been a long time, and it has. It is….a very…. _vulnerable_ sensation to lie here....ah…passive….and be opened this way….you know?”

Clint does, very well. Removing pain from the equation, getting fucked in the ass is still somehow a sort of shattering thing. It feels a little helpless, a little frightening, because even when it doesn’t hurt, the awareness that it very easily COULD is always there.

“Yes Sir,” he whispers, leaning down to press his forehead against Phil’s shoulder. This makes his cock shift, and Phil sucks in a harsh breath, sounding surprised. “Oh God, I’m sorry!”

“No! That’s not….” Phil takes another breath and Clint feels him roll his hips a little. “Hm. I’m fine. I’m just….readier….that I thought.” Clint’s body wants to sag in relief but he holds himself still, tension vibrating in every muscle. “I…I think I want you to move now. Go slow.”

“Yes Sir,” agrees Clint, even though pretty much his cock wants him to yell “AT LAST” because it feels so fucking good inside Phil that he can almost not stand it. He puts all those years of training in controlling his body to use now, concentrating on rolling his hips back slow and smooth and careful so that he pulls out easily, panting through his open mouth because MOTHER FUCK it feels amazing. He doesn’t move the rest of his body at all, intently focused on rocking his hips and pelvis so that his cock slides with enormous care in and out of Phil’s body. Phil only makes this easy for him for about the first four thrusts, and then he threatens to destroy Hawkeye’s concentration by lifting his ass to meet Clint’s thrusts, pressing against him and moaning softly.

“God,” gasps Phil. “That’s….you’re…. _nghuh_ …you’re perfect, Clint.”

“Thank you Master,” he replies, his voice shaking with strain. He closes his eyes and resists the urge to move faster and harder by thinking about the expression on Nick Fury’s face when Thor had picked him up in the lab the day they’d tried to quantify the demigod’s strength. Phil’s ass is so tight and good that even this does little to help.

“Clint?”

“Yes Sir?”

“More.”

“Sir,” says Clint, still pretty fearful, “I really, really don’t want to hurt you!” Phil bucks his hips hard as Clint tries to push into him slow and gentle.

“Clint,” growls Phil.

“Yes Sir?”

“If you don’t fuck me into this mattress right now, you’re not going to get to come for a week.”

“Master!”

“Did. I. Stutter?”

Fuuuuuckkkk. When Phil talks like that, it makes Clint’s toes curl. His next thrust is a little more forceful. Both of them groan from the feel of it. Jesus. So fucking good. Phil growls louder. One of his hands reaches back and he grabs the back of Clint’s head where it’s still pressed against the back of his shoulder. His fingers tighten painfully, and Clint whines. Phil jerks a little. Come ON, he’s saying. Clint gets what he means. He takes a deep breath, repeating over and over in his head that Phil always means what he says, always means what he says, wouldn’t ask if he didn’t mean it. So he pulls his cock out almost all the way, closing his eyes against the incredible friction and steeling himself a little, and then he snaps his hips forward, burying his cock in Coulson’s ass like he REALLY means it. Phil cries out at the sensation, but this time there’s no doubt in Clint’s mind it’s not a pain sound. It’s raw, needy, _hungry._ It also goes straight to his cock, which throbs a little. He desperately wants Phil to make that sound again, so he plants his hands on either side of Phil’s shoulders and uses his considerable muscle control to just _fuck_ , powering into Phil  with thrusts that start in his arms and roll down his spine, culminating in a vicious stab of his hips. He angles his cock downwards, and it rewarded by a harsh, hungry cry from Phil as his prostate is stimulated. Oh yeah. Right fuckin’ there.

“ _Ungh…._ yesss,” hisses Phil. “Fuck, baby….so good, you’re so perfect….c’mon, little boy, harder…”

Clint closes his eyes and shudders, then he lowers his head and fucks into Phil like he’s trying to break him, using the powerful muscles in his shoulders to help his body’s momentum, and it feels so fuckin’ good he’s almost blind, almost mindless with the way Phil’s hole squeezes him so tight. He’s never done this, never gone at a lover with all his strength, which is considerable, or it has been for the last several years anyway, because what he’s doing, using everything he’s got to hammer at Phil, would simply be too much for a person with a more fragile body to take. He does realize that if he called Natasha fragile, she’d break him into tiny mewling pieces, but there are some things that are just true. Women’s bones are simply more delicate than most men’s. He knows there are exceptions, but for the most part, it’s true. Also, he knows enough about the female anatomy to understand that if you plow the head of your cock into a girl’s cervix as hard as you can for half an hour, you’re probably not going to be her favorite person in the world when you’re done. But Phil doesn’t have one of those, and Phil’s body is lean and strong and muscular and somehow, miraculously, Clint isn’t hurting him. Phil is, in fact, egging him on with his panting, gasping cries of _yes,_ and _harder,_ and _Ohgod._

As he rams himself in over and over, he leans his head down and he starts to whisper to Phil while he fucks him, because he loves it, and he can’t keep his mouth shut anyway.

“God, Sir. This is….shit. I’ve never…….. _fuck! Fuck!_ Jesus, feels so fuckin’ good…..goddamn Sir, I love this, love fucking you…. _Phil…._ God, I didn’t know….I didn’t know it’d….. _hnn…._ could fuck you all night Sir. Want you to come. So bad. Wanna feel it. _Ohhhh….._ how does if feel, Sir? When I come on your cock? ……What’s it like? Will you….will….you give me that, come for me?”

“Jesus _Christ,_ Clint,” moans Coulson softly. It is almost a whimper. Clint has wrecked lesser lovers with his voice alone, and he knows it, knows his hot, needy, earnest whispers of desire and awe and need are hotter than fucking hell, because he just about kills himself with them, and Phil’s no more immune to it than anyone else has ever been. One of the differences between Phil, one of the important ones (aside from, you know, him having a dick and none of the others having one…) is that Phil likes to listen to him when they’re NOT fucking. “Stop,” says Phil suddenly, his voice rife with tension. Clint freezes, suddenly afraid he has done something wrong. Phil reaches back and pets his hip gently for a second, catching his breath.

“What’s wrong Sir?” asks Clint with concern.

“Nu…..nothing,” pants Phil. “I wa….want to change…..positions….”

“Yes Sir,” agrees Clint. Phil shifts, slides out from under him, leaving Clint feeling oddly bereft when it pulls his cock out of Phil, the cool air of the room feeling somehow wrong. Phil gets up on his knees, spreads them, and leans forward, arms spread a little, holding on to the headboard. Jesus. Clint whines a little, eagerly, and Phil laughs, looking over his shoulder, and his eyes are sick, filthy, teasing, wonderful.

“Come on, boy,” he purrs, and Clint doesn’t need more of an invitation. He shuffles forward on his own knees until he is pressed against Phil’s back. The skin-to-skin contact is perfect. He shivers as his right hand slides over Phil’s hip to hang on and his left hand guides his cock back to Phil’s entrance. He pushes in carefully, because the angle’s different, and he’s not sure he won’t hurt Coulson if he comes at him full bore until he knows how their bodies will fit together in this position. Geez, there’s a lot more to think about when you’re fucking another man than there is when you’re fucking a woman. He wonders if this is why gay men seem to be, in general, much more attentive lovers than straight men (he’s not stupid, he knows that’s not an absolute, is damn sure Jane would take issue with such a statement and pretty sure Pepper would too), because they’re a little more used to being careful.  The sensation of being engulfed by the insanely, maddeningly tight heat of Phil’s asshole derails any pretense of thought. His fingers on Coulson’s hip convulse, and he tries to make them let go.

“No,” says Phil softly. “Take what you need, baby boy, I want you to like this too. I want you….to want to do it…. _uhhnn….._ again.”

So he grips Phil’s hip hard enough to bruise, hard enough to anchor himself in the beauty of doing this, of fucking him, of being ALLOWED to share this, because he thinks he might just fall to pieces if he doesn’t hang on tight. He slides his other hand under Phil’s braced arm and wraps it around his chest, pressing their bodies close together while he finds the right angle and then starts fucking into him harder, then harder still when Phil growls at him. God, it’s exquisite. He buries his face in Phil’s shoulder, sounds that are almost not human wracking his body as he concentrates on fucking himself as far into Phil as he can go, on hitting just the right spot every time, making Phil moan and press back against him.

“Your….teeth,” grits Phil, breathless.

“ _Hngh…._ Sir?”

“You can….use your….teeth,” Coulson says laboriously, shoving his hips back to meet Clint’s, an almost inhuman groan torn from his throat. Clint whimpers and opens his mouth against Phil’s warm, smooth skin. He tongues the big muscle in Coulson’s shoulder, tasting the salt of sweat on his skin. Phil shudders. Clint makes a small, helpless sound and just does it, presses his teeth down and bites deep, whining through his grip against Phil’s skin. Phil throws his head back and cries out hoarsely, letting go of the headboard with one hand, sliding it down his belly to fist around his jutting cock. Clint makes a muffled sound of protest and tries to push Phil’s hand away, to do it for him. Phil slaps his hand away.

“Master…” Clint whines, taking his mouth off Phil’s shoulder.

“We’re both going to be done here eventually,” warns Phil softly. “You’re going to want to make sure you don’t give me any reason to be….displeased….with you.”

Fucking hell. Just…oh, just fuck.

“I want you doing nothing but fucking me, baby boy,” Coulson continues, more softly, though his breath is ragged, his voice hoarse and raw.

Clint presses his mouth back to Phil’s skin and concentrates on doing just that. He has no idea how long he’s been going. Forever and no time, hours and seconds. The friction on his cock is almost unbearably good. He watches down the front of Phil’s body while his Master takes his cock in his hand, sighing deep and relieved when he squeezes tightly and slowly begins to jack himself off. He’s so rough with himself.

“Oh,” breathes Clint, brushing his lips softly over the marks his teeth have left. “Fuck, Sir…I love watching you do that….touching….touching yourself. _Ungh….._ Ohgodohgod….so tight, you feel so fucking good. Want you to come, Sir….shit, shit….I can’t….go….much longer…it feels too fuckin’ good….want you to…. _need_ you to come, Sir, please. Do you like it, Sir? Me fuckin’ you? My cock inside you, so tight, so damn good?”

“Yes,” breathes Phil, his hand moving faster, breath hitching. Clint has to close his eyes for a few seconds, because the sight of Phil jerking himself off is too impossibly hot for words. “Clint!”

“Yes Sir?”

“Really….close….”

Clint’s brain clicks off and his body takes over, snapping his hips into Phil over and over, rubbing faster and harder over his sweet spot, making him writhe against the front of Clint’s body and curse.

“Sir,” Clint pleads, “oh, come Sir, please…I’m right behind you, need you to come first. Go over, Sir….please. I wanna know how it feels on my cock when you come. You’re amazing, Sir…this is….fuck….so perfect…. Please Sir, let go. Come for me Sir, please.”

The rhythm of Phil’s body rocking against his own falters a little, and his hips move more erratically. Clint muffles an agonized groan when he feels Phil’s anus sort of ripple, tightening even more than it already is, as his orgasm approaches. Phil twists his upper body around a little, turning his head to look at Clint. His eyes are wide and very blue, nearly blind with the need driving him to rut into his hand and onto the archer’s thrusting cock. Clint moans and leans close to kiss him, their tongues and teeth and lips sliding, nibbling, breath heavy and mingling. Phil’s body tenses, and he lets out a deep, wrenching moan, and his asshole clamps down so hard on Clint’s cock that he cries out, startled, and his balls draw up tight and pleasure is wrenched from his body, the sensation of the hard, vicelike gripping and releasing of Coulson’s hole, so hard it nearly hurts, is too much to resist, and he shouts in astonishment and ecstatic release as he feels his seed flood into Phil’s grasping hole. It seems to go on forever, a cycle of action and reaction, his own pleasure extended by the mind-numbing feel of Phil’s hole clutching so tight, the pulsing spasms of his cock inside making Phil shudder and groan.

They stay that way for what feels like an hour, bodies joined, pressed skin to skin, Clint’s belly and chest leaning against Phil, hips curved around Coulson’s ass, thighs brushing, his mouth pressing kisses into Phil’s neck and shoulder then back to his lips. He can feel his cock softening slowly inside Phil. Finally, Phil shifts a little, and Clint pulls back a bit reluctantly. Both of them gasp when his cock slips out of Phil’s body. It is Clint who reaches for the bedside table and the box of tissues to clean them up a little. They sink back down onto the bed together, a tangle of arms and legs, lying on their sides facing each other. Phil lifts a hand to gently stroke his fingers over Clint’s forehead, his cheekbone, cheek, jaw. He leans in and kisses the younger man softly, sweetly.

“Was….was it all right, Sir?” Clint whispers a little anxiously. Phil smiles. His eyes are soft and a little blurry, his face relaxed and a little sleepy.

“Oh no, baby boy,” he whispers back, his voice a little hoarse. Clint’s heart clutches in alarm at his answer for a moment. “It was far, far more than all right. It was perfect, wonderful, exactly right.” Clint grins delightedly. “Was it all right for you too?”

“Oh fuck, Sir,” he breathes in awe. “It was…damn. I had no idea it would feel that different, that amazing. I really loved it. But….” He draws back a little, not quite frowning but almost. “But I don’t think I’d want to do it too often. It was awesome, making you feel good, and I really do want to do it again, but I like…no, I love how our relationship works. I like you being in charge, like taking your cock in me however you choose, any time and any way, whether you want it to feel fanfuckingtastic or you want it to hurt a little or hurt a lot and make me cry and beg…I want it to keep on being like that, you know?”

“Believe me, little boy, I do know, and I agree. This isn’t something I want very often, only sometimes, and I love you so much, that you would give me this, even though it meant taking you outside your comfort zone. It meant a lot to me.”

“Me too, Sir, for you to trust me to do it. Um…are you okay? Did I hurt you? I mean, fuck…I was really pounding you there.”

Phil chuckles a little ruefully.

“Well,” he admits, “I did tell you I liked it rough, and that I wanted to feel it for days, and I’m going to. I’m a little sore, but it’s exactly what I wanted.”

“Okay….” Says Clint a little reluctantly. Phil’s lazy smile grows a little fierce.

“Want me to punish you for making your Master’s hole raw and sore?”

Clint whimpers.

“Want me to make you spread yourself wide for me so I can pink your tight little hole with a wooden spoon til you cry for your fucking like a good boy?”

Clint whimpers some more.

“Want me to paddle that sweet little pucker til you beg and beg me to stop, tell me how it hurts and stings?”

Clint…..goes and gets the wooden spoon from the kitchen.                                       


	13. Part 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is about fulfilling a fantasy of Clint's. The confiscation of a fraternity paddle stirs up desires and Phil wholeheartedly agrees to act upon them. 
> 
> PLEASE NOTE!  
> The roleplay between Clint and Phil is portrayed from Clint's point of view as if he really IS a teenaged boy, because inside his head at the time, he is one. Both partners play their roles very well. If reading about the abuse of a minor is upsetting for you, even though it is ONLY PRETEND, you may not want to read this chapter. Of course, if you've read this far and not been squicked, I imagine you're probably okay. Also, the scene is thoroughly negotiated and entirely consensual, but it is PLAYED between them by prior consent to pretend to be a non-con scene.
> 
> In addition, there are several text messages in this chapter between Clint and Phil. These are in italics. The replies from Phil are also bold face, so that you can tell who is saying what.

_Master?_

**_I’m on the phone, Clint_ **

_Sorry._

**_That’s okay, it’s a boring conversation anyway. Did you know that Ellsworth down in requisitions is a grandfather today? For the third time._ **

_Wow, Sir._

**_Yes. Also, I am being favored with a retelling of the births of the previous two little miracles._ **

_I don’t know how you stand being so lucky, Sir._

**_Why are you texting me, Clint?_ **

_I need something to do._

**_Read a book._ **

_I can’t_

**_Why? Has something happened to your eyes?_ **

_No Sir. Something happened to my ASS. I can’t sit down._

**_I don’t recall MAKING you go get the wooden spoon, little boy. You did that all by yourself._ **

_I didn’t know it was gonna hurt that much!_

**_In which universe inside your brain does it not hurt to get your asshole paddled, Clint? And then mercilessly fucked? With a pause in the middle to spank your hole some MORE when you wouldn’t stop struggling?_ **

_….._

**_Clint?_ **

_TG*^tuyg873t_

**_CLINT!_ **

_YTFHJblvhuyftfl7647* &^! Oh God_

**_Do I need to come down there?_ **

_…….YES!_

Clint likes to save all his text conversations with Phil and reread them sometimes. That particular one had been close to a week ago. It had taken several days before clenching even a little hadn’t made him wince. Not that it had kept him from doing it. Quite the opposite, in fact, because he’d kept doing it ALL THE TIME just to feel the smart and the ache. Not that he’s particularly anxious to repeat the experience, because Jesus, it had hurt…well, he’s not anxious to repeat it until he re-reads the text conversation. Clint’s perfectly aware his objectivity comes seriously into question when his dick is hard, not to mention his sense of self-preservation. Fortunately for him, he hasn’t had a hard on for anybody but Tasha or Phil in a really long time. Re-reading this makes him want to see Phil. Oh, who is he kidding? Breathing makes him want to see Phil. He backs out of the saved texts and opens a new one.

_What r u wearing?_

He snickers to himself as he hits send, halfway hopes Phil’s in a meeting with Fury.

**_A lot more than you’re going to be wearing later tonight._ **

Phil, apparently, is not very busy, because he never jokes with Clint via text from his office unless he’s not doing anything important. He opens the door to the apartment they’re essentially sharing (he’s pretty sure the room he was assigned is still technically his, he just hasn’t slept in it since Tasha left to go back to New York), and heads for the elevators.

_How do you know I’m not naked?_

**_Mm. How’s your asshole feeling today, baby boy?_ **

_Fuck, Sir!_

**_Better, then._ **

_Ugh….Maybe._

**_If you lie to me about it, you know I’ll just make it sore again._ **

_You’re killing me, Sir_

**_A pity. My intention was to be fucking you soon._ **

 

Clint knocks on the door, dimly hears Phil chuckle a little, then his voice saying, “Come.” He pokes his head in, grins over to where Phil sits at his desk.

“Oo, can I?” he asks hopefully. His train of thought is thereupon completely blown into orbit by what Phil is doing. He’s sitting at his desk as he always does, well-dressed and impeccably groomed and composed, the city of San Francisco spread out in panoramic view behind him. On the desk is a wooden object, which Phil seems to be attacking with a small chisel. There are several much smaller, broken bits of wood scattered about the surface of Phil’s desk. The wooden object Coulson is working on… Clint’s brain re-engages itself finally and he stares in fascination. It’s a paddle. A big, scary paddle. Exactly the kind he’s been imagining hanging ominously from the wall in Phil’s office for months now.

“Um,” he says brilliantly. Phil smiles. It’s not a very nice smile. It promises all sorts of very nasty things. Clint’s throat goes dry.

“So, I fired one of our accounting staff today,” says Phil conversationally, ignoring Clint’s quip upon entering the room. He’s not looking at Clint at all anymore, is instead focusing on what he’s doing. Clint’s not positive, but he thinks Phil’s chiseling off some stuff that was glued to the paddle’s surface before he’d started in on it. He tries to pay attention to what Coulson’s saying, he really does, but what he’s DOING is so much more riveting that he’s having a little trouble. Fortunately, Phil doesn’t appear to mind. He just goes on conversationally. “Discovered he was attempting to embezzle, caught the bastard cold before he even got off the ground, had him forcibly ejected from the building.” Phil takes disloyalty among the ranks very  personally, often even goes so far as to blame himself when it happens. He doesn’t appear to be doing so this time at least. His eyes are bright and his grim smile is pleased and fierce as he recounts the look on the hapless embezzler’s face when the Director had shown up at his cubicle with an armed escort. Before taking action, they had ascertained that the man knew no important secrets, was privy to no useful knowledge at all, had not actually managed to steal anything, and could no longer access any of SHIELD’s accounts, not even the very mundane ones he’d been working on. If any of those facts had been different, Clint’s pretty sure the man’s termination of employment would have gone a lot differently. He has no idea what it says about him that he’d find Phil just as hot if he was sitting there gleefully recounting the way he’d neutralized the traitor as he does listening to Phil describe what really had occurred. He doesn’t care. He’s hoping Phil’s going to get to the part about the paddle any time now. “Normally, I wouldn’t have taken any notice of personal items left behind in an ex-employee’s cubicle, but I made an exception,” Phil continues, running fingertips down the paddle’s edge and lifting his eyes to meet Clint’s, burning wildly blue and wicked. “You see, Accounts Payable clerk Mitch Tucker went to Ohio State, and he was a Pike.”

“A what now?” asks Clint, sensing that the subject is indeed working its way around to the fascinating object in Phil’s hands, but having no idea what that term actually means if it’s not referring to a long, spearlike weapon or a fish.

“A Pike,” says Phil patiently, smoothing off a bit of dried glue with the chisel. “His fraternity. Pi Kappa Alpha.”

“Okay,” shrugs Clint. He recognizes the greek letters, knows a little about fraternities and sororities, but not a lot.

“So that apparently meant a great deal to him, because he had this hanging on the wall in his cubicle. I…liberated it….before the cleaners could take over.”

Clint’s still confused, but doesn’t mind that a lot.

“What does….that….thing have to do with him being in a fraternity?” he ventures, sort of hoping that doesn’t make him sound like an idiot. Phil smiles briefly at him.

“You keep up with me so well all the time, I often forget you didn’t go to college,” he apologizes gently. Clint chooses to take it as the compliment it’s meant to be. “While I understand the objects are mostly symbolic nowadays, fraternities used to implement some fairly strenuous hazing techniques. Pledges used to have to decorate their own paddle with their colors, chapter name and letters, things like that, then hand it over to be used on them as part of the rituals they had to go through in order to be initiated.”

“You are shitting me,” says Clint, fascinated.

“No,” says Phil. “It’s come under a lot of scrutiny in the last ten years or so, and most places have cracked down on hazing a lot, because people are often injured and sometimes even killed due to unsafe hazing practices, but the paddling thing was pretty normal even after some of the other stuff like drinking until you passed out or not sleeping for days on end or being driven blindfolded out in to the woods and left to fend for yourself fell by the wayside to a large degree. For the most part now, the paddles are symbolic, as I said, and many brothers keep them as mementos for the rest of their lives.”

“So….” ventures Clint cautiously, “What are you doing to it, Sir?”

“Getting rid of the greek letters and names that were glued to it,” says Phil, nodding his head at the little pile of what Clint now recognizes as broken bits of wooden die-cut letters and numbers Coulson has scraped off the paddle.

“Oh,” he says vaguely, staring at the way Phil’s fingers smooth the golden surface of the wood. “Um. What are…what are you going to do with it when you’re done, Sir?” he asks, a little bit breathlessly. Phil’s mouth curves into a smile.

“I thought I’d smooth it out, sand it down and re-varnish it,” he says. Clint sighs.

“I mean after that,” he says impatiently.

“I know you do,” smirks Phil. He’s being an asshole again. Ugh.

“Phil!” Clint whines. Goddammit, the bastard is killing him here. Phil looks up sharply at the whine and Clint squirms a little where he’s standing. Coulson’s eyes nail him to the floor like he’s paralyzed. Hawkeye starts to actually get really nervous, trying to figure out what he’s said that has truly offended Phil, when Phil finally laughs quietly.

“It’s for you of course, silly boy,” he relents finally, grinning at Clint. “I had a feeling you might be able to think of a couple of interesting ways we could….implement it.”

“Jesus,” says Clint fervently. “I really love you.”

 

You’d think that after some of the other insane shit they’ve done together, something like this would be easy. Hell, the time in Phil’s office that hadn’t even been thought about until that moment is still one of the hottest things he’s ever done. Phil has, however, decided that this is going to be a BIG DEAL. Clint thinks about it that way in his head after two days, in capital letters. He’s not stupid, he knows part of it is that Phil’s dragging out the suspense. He’s a sadistic fuck, is Phil. Bless him. The rest though, the talking it over and over, the negotiations and notes Phil takes (this is adorable to Clint, who never even has a PEN on him), the endless questions he asks Clint, some of which make him feel sort of embarrassed, are all so that Phil can be sure of making it good for Clint, and not emotionally upsetting.

“Why do you want this, Clint?” asks Phil keenly the next night, rather abruptly, after Clint thinks they’re done with the subject for now (they have finished discussing costuming and how to work in a safeword without necessarily breaking the entire mood in case something feels wrong or needs to change along the way). He hunches his shoulders in an uncomfortable shrug.

“I don’t know,” he mutters, not looking at Phil.

“Don’t lie to me, Clint. I won’t have it. You’re the most self-aware person I’ve ever met. You _get_ your kinks, you own them. I want to know why you want this. I know that you do want it, and believe me, I am perfectly capable of grasping the fact that it’s simply dirty, and that’s fun. I have no doubt you’re well aware of why you want it.”

Clint sighs.

“You know I hate convoluted shit, Sir,” he complains, yelping when Phil pinches him hard on the inside of his thigh. “Ow! I didn’t say I wasn’t gonna answer, geez Master!”

“Then do it faster,” says Phil, cheerfully pinching him again.

“Now you’re just being mean,” Clint pouts.

“Hm. If you’d like to see mean, keep stalling.”

“Yes Sir…I mean, no, Sir. Oh hell. I’m tellin’, come _on!”_ He rubs the place on his leg where he’s certain he can feel bruises coming in already. “I’m not trying to be a pain when I say I know and I don’t know, I’m really not. It’s….a lot of reasons and only one at the same time?”

“Okay. From a lot of people, I’d call that further evasion, but since it’s you, I believe you’re telling the truth. Explain,” says Phil doggedly, but at least he stops pinching.

“Well…the really simple reason is cause it’s sick, of course,” says Clint, grinning at Phil, who smiles back and rubs his thumb gently over the place he’s recently pinched.

“Of course,” he murmurs. Clint sticks the tip of his thumb in his mouth and nibbles it, thinking, The tip of his tongue worries at a rough place on the edge of his thumbnail. He glances at Phil, realizes his lover is staring fixedly at his mouth, and lets the corner of his mouth curve a little. He licks the pad of his thumb slowly, softly, lasciviously, and sighs softly. The hand on his thigh twitches and he rushes on. “Um…so yeah, I really do just get a charge out of the…you know, twistedness of being bad and you being the authority figure who punishes me for it, yeah?”

“I know,” says Phil. “But it _is_ more than that. I know it is. The thing is, Clint…for me, it’s mostly just because it’s dirty. I do say mostly, because there IS a part of you acting so impossibly young and awful and adorable that strikes a chord in me, the one that wishes I could go back and protect you from the things that hurt you in the past.”

“Sir,” says Clint uncomfortably. “I really don’t want to make this very much about my shitty past. I’m gonna talk about it, cause I do know that’s in there, I really do, but I can’t….I don’t think I can stand it if we have to sit here and turn this into something sad. Can we…not?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out, baby boy,” says Phil gently. “If too much of this desire stems from things that happened or didn’t happen to you when you were a child, we need to know, because I don’t want to accidentally rip the scab off an old wound only because you haven’t shared it with me.”

“Okay,” says Clint. “That’s fair.” He sighs. “All right. What I’d like to say is that yes, I do realize that part of what I get out of being your little boy…ok it feels weird too say it THAT way cause I’m pretty sure neither of us is pretending I’m seven years old or anything awful like that, yeah?”

“Certainly not,” says Phil, looking mildly alarmed.

“Ok cool. So part of it is OF COURSE because I never had a dad. Like you said, I’m pretty self-aware. I know my birth father was a drunk and an asshole and took my mother away from me. I know floating around the foster system just made it worse when one family after another wouldn’t keep me…us.” Fuck, he thinks morosely. Guess we’re going to talk about this a little. Damn him. “I know that Barney sort of took that place in my head while it was just the two of us, and that when he ran off, I was fucked up over it. I _know_ those things, but you were right earlier when you said I own them. I do. Yeah, my childhood sucked. I don’t…lose sleep over it though. I mean, if one single thing about my past had been different, I might not be sitting here with you right now. I might not have Tasha in my life. I might not feel like the luckiest sick fucker on the planet right at this moment. And I DO feel that way, Sir. My god, look at my life for a minute. I have four of the most powerful beings in the…what, the galaxy?....yeah, on fuckin’ speed dial. My girlfriend is both the hottest and the scariest woman I have ever known and all four of those powerful beings think I am one badassed motherfucker to take her to bed. I am so good at what I do that Tony Stark personally designs and builds new arrows and toys for me because he finds me an interesting challenge. I have personally helped save the world on more than one occasion, and I gotta tell you Sir, I’m sure you’re well aware that’s a damn good feeling. I have not one but TWO lovers who fulfill every last one of my sick sexual fantasies on a regular basis, and never make me feel bad about them. How many people can say that? How many people are even capable of being honest with their lovers about what they really, in their darkest of hearts, want? And then be sure of getting it? My past, Sir…it wasn’t the best. But I would go back and relive every single awful second of it and not change one thing, because where I am now is so exactly, perfectly where I want to be that there is no price too high to pay.”

Phil is smiling at him in the sort of bemused, dreamy way Phil sometimes gets, though it’s usually when he doesn’t think Clint notices. 

“All right,” the older man says warmly. “That being said, it sounds as though we can safely say acting seventeen again lets you feel _in part_ the way you imagine having a dad who loved you might have been…minus the sex of course, which is….though mixed up in it, NOT actually part of your abandonment issues.”

“Pretty much,” agrees Clint. “Cause I damn sure never wanted to fuck my father, or Barney, or any of the foster fathers I went through like changing my damn socks, or even Chisholm.” He hasn’t actually thought of his old mentor by his real name in a long time. Trickshot’s no saint, and was probably on the wrong side of the law more often than the right, but mostly he was as decent as he was capable of being to a lonely teenaged kid. They’d stopped seeing eye to eye not long before Clint had left the circus, but he bears the man no ill will. Which is a segue if he’s ever heard one.

“So yeah, okay, moving on. The stuff Trickshot was teaching me right about the time I hit puberty got REALLY all tangled up in my sexuality, and I know that. The leather costumes, the blindfolds….and NO, that’s not why I hate them, just so you know…”

“I know why you hate them,” says Phil softly.

He should. Phil’s the one who spent three and a half hours painstakingly cutting off the one the North Koreans had tied so tightly over Clint’s eyes that the thing had become stuck to Hawkeye’s skin where wounds they’d given him had begun to heal, binding the cruelly knotted scarf to his flesh. Clint grunts softly in acknowledgement of the memory and discards it.

“Anyway, even though it was Buck who was blindfolding and tying me up, while at the same time not being horrible all the time and teaching me something I really, really loved…no. I never felt this way about him. It’s NOT unresolved shit about him. He was decent, and he was the only man who ever blistered my ass…I totally deserved it, by the way…and didn’t damage me or make me feel shitty about it. So I guess you could say that he DID have a lot to do with sort of molding the things I like now, laying my wiring, you know? But I never thought of him in any conflicted way. I wasn’t ever attracted to him. Knowing where some of my kinks came from doesn’t complicate them, Sir. And roleplaying that age again isn’t going to bring out any kind of unresolved issues I have over him.”

“All right,” says Phil. “I believe you. You’d tell me if you had that kind of concern.”

“Course I would, Sir. It’s like you used to tell me on ops, that both of us could only be as good as the information we were provided or were able to gather in a given scenario. If I didn’t tell you everything you needed to know to be able to back me properly or you didn’t tell me everything I needed to be able to make  my own judgment calls when I had to, we were cheating each other.” Phil looks bemused.

“I think you’re the only asset I’ve ever handled who seems to remember every single thing I ever told them.”

“You’re the only handler I ever had who said stuff worth remembering,” says Clint, laughing a little.

“Except all those times I said you should turn in your sitrep reports in the morning?”

“Well,” says Clint defensively, “that was boring.”

“Does Fury expect the Avengers to turn in sitreps?” asks Phil curiously, as though this has just occurred to him. Clint laughs.

“Yeah. Steve does them. Fury yells at the rest of us every now and then, but not like he really expects it to do any good. Tony had JARVIS generate one for him once. It was three hundred and twelve pages long.” Phil lays his forehead on Clint’s shoulder and laughs until he’s gasping for breath.

“Oh God, that’s perfect. I bet Nick read it, too.”

“Anyway, I don’t look at this whole…age play, Daddy kink thing…as some kind of dangerous trigger or me being obsessed with fixing my past or anything like that, Sir. It’s just _fun._ If anything, maybe it’s as simple as the fact that there wasn’t a lot of plain and simple _fun_ while I was growing up. And…the fun I did have, once I hit fifteen and met Gretchen (he has told Phil about the little acrobat and shown him the letter she sent him, now), well, it was all about being as bad and filthy a little whore as I could be. And believe me, in the circus, that’s saying something. The women loved me, because I liked them…all of them, and made them feel desired and sexy, even if they weren’t to anybody else. I didn’t see it as a deformity or a flaw if they had one arm, or were overweight, or didn’t have a nose. It’s not that I sought out the freaks or anything, it’s just that I realized pretty quickly that the people everyone else overlooked were actually the ones who were the most fun to be with, the most enthusiastic lovers, the least complicated and demanding.”

“Were there any women in the circus you didn’t sleep with?” asks Phil curiously.

“Oh sure. A few were lesbians, hardcore ones, and I’m not one of those idiots who thinks the only reason a woman would ‘choose’ to be a lesbian is because they just haven’t met the right man. A few were in committed relationships, and I’ve always respected that. I don’t poach, and I wouldn’t sleep with anybody who already had a partner, even if they tried. That was part of why it was so hard for Tasha to convince me that this is…okay. Being with you, I mean. I know there are poly relationships that work. There was a triad in the circus. The strongman, Vlados, had two….well, he called them wives and they called themselves his wives, though I kind of doubt it was actually official. They were three of the happiest people I ever knew. But I’ve also seen just one night of exploring with a different partner, even with everybody agreeing to it, tear relationships apart.”

“It does take some pretty specific personality traits and extremely secure people to make it work,” agrees Phil. “Tasha tells me you still worry about it.” Clint squirms a little.

“I just don’t want to screw anything up, you know? I can’t help worrying that my happiness is coming at the expense of hers, somehow.”

“She’s worried from the beginning of her relationship with you that she wouldn’t be able to spend enough time with you to keep you satisfied,” says Phil softly. “SHIELD sends Natasha into the field more than any ten other agents combined. Perhaps Nick is making an effort to ensure her availability to the Avengers when she’s needed, but it’s still true that she’s on assignment more often than she’s not. She’s never risked a long term relationship for that very reason. She IS the job, and she’s never been willing to risk another person’s happiness depending on her, because she will never stop being what she is, and doesn’t feel that could possibly be enough to keep a lover satisfied. That you won’t be alone when she can’t be with you is an enormous relief to her.”

“Huh,” says Clint thoughtfully. “Guess I never thought about it that way.”

“Any other reasons?” asks Phil, reaching up to stroke fingertips through Clint’s hair, which makes him shiver a little.

“Uhm. Well obviously you know I have a thing for being…taken. Helpless.”

“Obviously.”

“I think that it’s enhanced for me when I’m in a place in my head where I feel younger, less experienced. Part of the intensity of submitting to you…and I think it’s this way for both of us…is that I DO have a choice, even if you refused to recognize my safeword or refused to release me if I wanted it…”

“That would never happen,” says Phil firmly.

“Oh, I know. SO even if you got possessed and refused those things, I know I could probably beat you. Probably.”

“It’s not ‘probably,’ Clint,” says Phil with a rueful smile. “Even at my peak, you would have been able to beat me in a fight. We don’t know what makes you the way you are, whether you were born this way due to a minor genetic mutation, or whether it’s from exposure to something during infancy or early childhood, or even later, that you’ve forgotten or that was hidden from you. Your file says you’re human, and you are, but you’re also more than human, we just don’t know exactly how or why. And yes, it is most definitely part of the rush for me, knowing that you CHOOSE to submit to me when you could so easily turn the tables on me if you wanted to.”

Clint frowns. He doesn’t like the thought that somewhere along the way, something might have been done to him without his knowledge or consent. Of course he doesn’t remember a lot of his childhood. There isn’t much in it he wants to remember. He still prefers to think that he was born this way, that his dead aim and reflexes, the strength in his arms and his body, the perfect control he has trained himself to have over his muscles and his movements and the way he can see before it happens where he will land if he jumps this way or what spot on that ledge his toes will touch first if he leaps that way.

“Okay, right. So yeah, knowing I could, makes giving it up for you into something even more special, I guess? But when in my head I’m just a bratty kid, or whatever it is that works at the time, I _can’t_ fight you, Phil. The feeling of being helpless, of not having a choice, feels more real to me then. To know that you’re going to punish me, going to fuck me, no matter what I do or say, that turns me on so much I swear sometimes I think I could come just thinking about it, not even touching myself. Then adding to it whatever switch it throws in my brain that means I really can’t stop you…wow. That’s just so hot for me, I can’t even explain it.” He looks down at his lap and smiles a little ruefully as his body’s response to just telling Phil this confirms his claims. Phil chuckles, and the hand that had pinched earlier now slides farther up his thigh to press firmly on his rising hardness. He rocks his hips up to push back against Phil’s hand, gasping a little. “The…. _ohh don’t stop doing that…._ the fact that you’re always the good guy, the nice older man who takes me in or the…well in this case, the principal or headmaster…who doesn’t hate me or think I’m a waste of time….Jesus, Sir, I’m really gonna come if you keep doing that,” he pants as Phil scrapes his fingernails across the rough denim stretched over Clint’s erection. Phil just smiles and keeps doing it. “ _Hngh._ Oh…um…I…I need you to be that guy, Phil. Be…because nobody who might’ve been that kinda authority for me was ever nice, you know? I don’t get off on thinking about you being a bastard to me or liking hurting me or wanting to mess me up and tear me down and abuse me, not while I’m this kid who needs discipline….even though there’s sex in it, and I do realize…. _fuck_ ….that sounds like a contradiction, cause of _course_ a really nice man wouldn’t take advantage of a seventeen year old kid and fuck him as part of his punishment or because he couldn’t resist the little slut’s charms…oh _please_ Sir, I don’t think I can handle this much longer….but it’s my fantasy, and I don’t care that it doesn’t make much logical sense.”

“It’s okay, little boy,” whispers Phil in his ear, nipping gently and making Clint whine a little. “I understand. Your explanations are satisfactory, and my concerns are alleviated. And I promise you that your inner child will never have anything from me but discipline, love, and filthy sex, and it doesn’t have to make sense, not if it works for both of us. Now get on your knees.”

Whimpering, Clint slides off the couch and kneels in front of Phil, knowing he’s making absurd little eager sounds as Phil slowly unbuttons his pants and slides the zipper down. He doesn’t even wait for Coulson to finish before he’s taking his Master’s cock in his mouth, tonguing the slit and tasting the salt there, sucking gently and moaning softly. Phil sighs deeply and slides his hips forward so Clint can reach more easily. Clint never approaches sucking Phil’s cock with a goal in mind. He’s not trying to make him come or trying to drag it out, he just likes doing it, likes the way he can make Phil suck in his breath, groan, arch his hips towards the archer’s eager mouth. He likes the way it tastes, the way the skin is so soft and yet Phil’s cock is so hard, the way it pulses and jerks a little in his mouth when his tongue drags over a particularly sensitive spot. He likes how Phil’s hands slide through his hair or rest on the back of his neck. He doesn’t mind if Phil forces him, holds his head down and fucks his mouth, but he likes it when Phil’s touch is just that…just touching him while he pleasures him…the presence of his hand is a reminder that he _could_ force Clint’s head down if he wanted to. The younger man doesn’t think about how long it takes, or that his knees will start to get a little tired soon, or that his jaw will ache after he’s been doing it for a while. He practices deep-throating, which is something he can do, but it’s still a struggle, not to gag, not to panic when he can’t breathe. Doing it now, when Phil’s not in any particular hurry, makes him better able to take it when Phil does force his cock down Clint’s throat. Phil groans out loud when Clint succeeds, and the muscles of his throat clamp down and work Coulson’s dick. The hands in Clint’s hair tighten then, and pull his head back. He lets go obediently, but he whimpers a little at the loss, licking his lips and tugging just a tiny bit against the hold on his head.

“Stop,” says Phil hoarsely. “I don’t want to come in your mouth.”

“I want you to, Master,” whispers Clint.

“Mm,” says Phil, his voice dangerously soft, “and are you calling the shots now, little boy?”

“No Sir,” says Clint meekly. “I’m sorry Sir. Where do you want me?”

“Over the ottoman, take off your pants,” says Phil, letting go of his hair and giving him a tiny shove to get him moving. Clint obeys quickly, shucking his jeans and dragging the big cushy ottoman away from the recliner. He thinks about Phil caning him over this thing, wonders if he’s going to do it again. Hopes, if he is, that it won’t be quite as hard as last time. Phil doesn’t though. He kneels behind Clint, and a wet finger slides without warning into his hole. Clint squeaks a little in surprise, and writhes. It isn’t lube, it’s spit, so he’s gonna feel this, but Phil takes his time, stretching him carefully, adding more spit as he goes, opening Clint slowly so he’ll be ready, then pressing his cock against the archer’s wet hole. Phil’s hands grasp his hips, holding him in place, but not digging in, not hurting.

“I want you to feel it, Clint,” says Phil in a voice gone rough with desire. “But I don’t want it to hurt you much. If it does, you’ll tell me, understand?”

“Yes Sir,” gasps Clint. “ _Please!”_ Phil chuckles.

“As it happens, I don’t feel like making either one of us wait for it, or making you beg for it. Let me in, baby, take my cock for me, that’s my good boy.” And he eases into Clint’s body, slowly and carefully. There’s only a little bit of sting at the stretch, and only a little friction as he starts to  move, thrusting inside Clint’s body deeply and firmly, but not hard enough to cause pain. Clint groans and pushes his hips back into Phil’s long, steady thrusts, breathless and needy. Oh God, he thinks dazedly, how can it be like this? How can it feel so fucking good every time? Fuck, so perfect. A startled cry is pulled from his throat when Phil finds his sweet spot, angling his hips to rub hard over it every time his hips press against Clint’s ass. Clint’s hands steal behind his back, fingers grasping, and Phil takes his hands, holding his wrists together loosely. It’s not confining in any way, and Clint can move his hands any time he wants, but he adores the way it feels when Phil holds his hands behind his back while he’s fucking. Clint is surrendering, and Phil is taking him, accepting his surrender and his choice, and holding him helpless even though they both know he is far from it. The hard clench of lust it wrenches from Clint’s body is the same whether Phil grips his wrists tightly or not, or whether he is cuffed or tied. It is symbolic, and that’s enough.

“Don’t ask,” hisses Phil. “I don’t want you to ask. I want you to need to come so badly that you can’t help it. I want you to just let go for me, beautiful boy. All right?”

“Yes Sir,” gasps Clint. “It’s…. _ohgod…._ not gonna….take long…”

“Any time you need to,” whispers Phil, fucking into him a little harder, making him whine through his teeth and squirm. “Feel my cock in you, baby. You feel so good, so tight, so perfect. I love fucking you, love the sounds you make, how your little hole clenches and quivers. You have the most perfect ass I’ve ever seen. So good, Clint. My good boy. Come apart for me, Clint. Go over. Let go.”

Clint’s fists, held gently in Phil’s hand, clench and he shouts as release courses through his body in a warm flood of pleasure. Phil’s breath catches, and his hands tighten, one on Clint’s crossed wrists, the other on his hip, and he snaps his hips forward and buries his cock deep in the archer’s shaking body, gasping Clint’s name as the younger man’s pleasure brings his own. Clint is so ridiculously happy that as the last vestiges of orgasm shiver through him, he laughs. Phil groans and slaps him lightly on the ass as his laughter makes his asshole clench around Coulson’s sensitized and slowly softening cock. Clint yelps in mock distress and then they’re both laughing, and slide to the floor where they just sit there for a little while, sort of jumbled together and sated and absurdly happy.

“We should probably move,” says Phil contentedly after a few minutes.

“Probably,” agrees Clint. “Hope whoever cleans your carpets has a sense of humor though.”

 

And still, STILL, even after this conversation, Phil wants to keep talking things over, working out details, forcing Clint to confess fantasies to him, in detail. In graphic, tantalizing, frustrating detail, while he takes notes. Phil wants to discuss the implications of various different colors of TIES, for fuck’s sake! Knowing that Phil’s doing it so it’ll be great, and also because the impatience puts Clint further and further into the frame of mind Phil wants him in….doesn’t really help. Neither does the fact that almost every single discussion involves Phil making him recount filthy details that arouse him hideously. The text messages are truly heartless.

**_What does he say to you, when he’s getting ready to fuck you, baby?_ **

_You’re a horrible person!_

**_Really? That doesn’t seem to fit in with what you told me the other night…_ **

_Phil!_

**_Answer the question. Or I won’t go down on you when I get home in an hour like I was planning._ **

_Jesus Christ. Fine. He tells me I’ve had it coming for a long time. That it’s going to hurt. That I may cry, but that’s okay. That I need to be punished. Or that boys who tease get more than they wanted. Or that he’s sorry this is going to hurt so much but that I have to learn to behave. Or that I should try to relax or it’s going to hurt more._

**_Make that half an hour._ **

To make it worse, once he finishes with the paddle, has it sanded smooth and varnished a warm cherry color, Phil hangs the fucking thing on the wall in the entryway, so that Clint will see it every time he enters or leaves the apartment.

One morning, it is gone. Clint’s belly does somersaults when he gets up to pad into the kitchen for breakfast. He had been up late the night before, talking to Tasha on the phone because he’d felt a little restless and Phil was already asleep. He’d known she’d be awake too, had treasured knowing that she would answer, and wouldn’t be annoyed. She hadn’t been. She’s leaving for Washington today with Steve, to appear before a Congressional committee. It’s a good thing Clint knows Tasha finds Steve endearing but way too stuffy He’s sleepily dumping stuff into Phil’s blender for a protein shake when he notices the wall, and just stands there stupidly for a few minutes, staring at the place the paddle has been hanging until this morning. There is a post-it note stuck to the wall where it was hanging. He walks over to it and peels the note off. It consists of only one word.

“Today”

 The hours and days of preparation Phil has subjected him to the last week suddenly make sense to Clint, because as he automatically begins the steps they’ve plotted out upon receiving this message Clint feels as though the key which has just been sitting in the lock of this fantasy is pushed home, turns, and clicks into place.

He sheds his clothes. Blue jeans, t-shirt that says “If life gives you melons, you may be dyslexic,” they’re not right. Not dress code. Stupid dress code. He sighs, put upon, makes sure he doesn’t look at himself in the mirror as the steps take him farther and farther away from Hawkeye and closer to Clint Barton, prep school behavior problem. White button-down shirt, khaki pants…a little wrinkled, screw it, he’s not ironing them. Tuck your shirt in young man. Geez. He sighs, halfheartedly cramming shirt tails into his pants. Good enough. Tie. Tie, tie….where the hell did he leave it? Oh yeah, there it is. He makes a face. At least he’s perfected the art of loosening it and pulling it over his head after classes so he doesn’t have to tie it every day. Ugly thing. Red and blue fuckin’ diagonal stripes. What is this, 1990? Shit, gonna be late for class again. The hell’re my shoes? Oh damn, that’s right. Was wearing them last night when me and Tony snuck out to steal some sulphur from the chem lab to make stink bombs. Sprinklers were on, shoes are wrecked, covered with mud. Oh well, converse are gonna have to do. Maybe none of the professors will notice. By the time Clint is dressed and has deliberately forgotten to brush his spiky, disheveled hair, there is none of him not completely immersed in his role. The Avenger Hawkeye, the world’s greatest marksman, has ceased to mean anything to him at this moment.

He slouches out the door, makes his way down to the caf. Notices one of his shoes are untied but can’t be bothered to fix it. He’s hungry. Missed dinner last night because of fuckin’ detention. Again. Assholes. Not a single person in this shithole has a sense of humor. It’s not like the frogs actually _hurt_ anybody. He helps himself to a sandwich and some fritos and a coke, then slumps at a table, his algebra book in front of him, concealing the comic book inside and reads, munching, just zoning out the voices around him. A few people look at him a little funny. Screw them. He doesn’t give a shit if he fits in around here or not. He’s immersed enough in Alpha Flight that he doesn’t notice anyone approaching until highly polished wingtips appear at the edge of his vision. He shuts the textbook with a snap and straightens up a little, looking up in alarm and a little guilt. Oh shit, he groans inwardly. Just what he needs. The headmaster is at his table, standing there staring at him impassively. Dude seriously makes him nervous. It’s not that he’s an asshole, really. Some of the guys really like him, claim he’s pretty cool if you get to know him a little. If Clint’s honest with himself, and he’s not very good at that, Coulson scares the crap out of him and he doesn’t know why.

“Mr. Barton,” says the headmaster quietly.

“Uh…yes Sir?” he says, looking as innocent as possible and running fingers awkwardly through his hair, hoping it’s at least sort of lying down flat. It’s not.

“Come with me, please. I’d like to speak with you in my office.”

Oh shit. That can’t be good. He swallows a little and tries to think of some way out of it, but when he hesitates too long, the older man leans in close and, using his body to hide his actions from the rest of the room, takes hold of Clint’s ear and tugs sharply. Clint smothers a pained yelp. Mr. Coulson hisses into his ear.

“Believe me, young man, this is not a conversation you wish to have with me right here, right now. My office. Now.”

Oh geez, he’s screwed. There’s nothing for it now but to get to his feet and slouch after Coulson down the halls, looking at his feet and refusing to meet the eyes of the other students and staff that they pass. He knows what he’d see if he did. Curiosity, laughter, malice. They’re laughing at him, probably. Figure he’s in trouble like always, gonna get it. Oh fuck, his mind reels and babbles at him. You ARE in trouble. What’s he gonna do? Expel me? I can’t get kicked out of another school.

He’s never been inside Coulson’s office before. It’s kind of intimidating. Lots of heavy, dark wood and about an acre of desk. Walls covered with diplomas and awards and plaques he’s earned, or the school has. Coulson goes to stand in behind his desk, points to a spot in front of it with a significant glance. Clint stops there, staring at the floor, unsure of what he’s supposed to do with his hands.

“Do you know why you’re here, Clint?” the man asks softly. He doesn’t really sound pissed. A little tired maybe.

“No, Sir,” he mumbles sullenly. Cause geez, the list of reasons it COULD be is pretty long.

“Hm,” muses the headmaster. “I’d appreciate it if you’d do me the courtesy of looking at me when I’m speaking to you, son.”

Clint flicks his eyes up to Coulson’s face. He doesn’t think he can. It makes him feel like he can’t breathe. Those blue eyes are almost kind, and Clint doesn’t know what to do with kind. There are lines around his eyes, but they kinda look like they’re the sort of lines a man gets from smiling, from laughing, not from frowning. There’s more than one student here who confesses to fantasizing about what Headmaster Coulson looks like out of his snazzy dark suits. Clint has always laughed at the boys who say shit like that. Laughed the longest, and the loudest, of anyone. The catch in his breath and the uncomfortable clutching in his belly are going a long way towards forcing him to admit to himself exactly WHY he was laughing so loud. And nope, not gonna go there. He meets the man’s gaze for a few seconds, then drops his eyes again. Coulson sighs and comes out from behind the desk to stand in front of it, facing Clint. .He leans back and sits on the edge, and just looks at the young boy for a while, until Clint starts to fidget.

“I’m getting rather a lot of reports about you, young man,” he says finally, sighing. “I had hoped it was just because you needed some time to adjust. Our rules and regulations here are a bit more….stringent….than what you’re used to. I’m sorry to say that hasn’t happened, so it must be dealt with.”

“Yessir,” mutters Clint, hunching his shoulders.

“Mm.” Coulson turns slightly, and Clint is absolutely NOT noticing the way the fabric of his suit slides over broad shoulders. Nope. The Headmaster picks up a notebook and flips it open. “Let’s see, shall we? You’ve been tardy for first period more than you’ve been on time. You’ve cut gym on at least twelve occasions and upon checking up, I’ve discovered the excuse note you’ve given to Coach Sitwell claiming that you have asthma is a complete forgery. Perhaps you should choose to forge the signature of a physician who is NOT the Surgeon General of the United States next time, eh?” Clint’s pretty sure he’s got to be imagining that there’s a tinge of humor in Coulson’s voice at that one. Damn.

“Yessir,” he whispers.

“I have seventeen complaints of disrespect and disruptive behavior in class. Tell me something, son. Did you REALLY release a hundred and seventeen frogs in the Biology lab yesterday?”

“Um…well I didn’t actually count them, Sir. But it was a shitton…uh…a lot of frogs.”

He’s nearly sure Coulson’s lips twitch.

“Not to mention your language,” the man segues smoothly. “You have actually been made aware that profanity is against the rules, have you not?”

“Um. Yessir, I guess so.” Clint pokes at the floor with his toe and shrugs. His ears are red and he hates being embarrassed.

“I see. I was operating under the assumption that this little thing had somehow been neglected, as I fail utterly to comprehend how someone who IS aware of the rule could manage to compile NINETY SEVEN demerits for profanity in one semester.”

“Wow,” whispers Clint in awe. He hadn’t realized it was quite so many.

“That’s one way to put it,” agrees Mr. Coulson. “Which brings us to dress code violations. I’m curious as to whether there has been a single day in which you were actually compliant, Mr. Barton.”

Clint shrugs again, looks up at Coulson from under his eyelashes, because girls have told him this is adorable. Coulson appears unmoved.

“I think the first day, maybe,” he admits.

“Let’s take today as an example, shall we?” asks the headmaster conversationally, standing up to walk in a slow circle around Clint, who finds it terrifying to have the man so close he can actually feel his body heat. Coulson’s fingers stroke Clint’s tie. “This knot is improperly tied, and your neckwear is a good three inches looser than parameters allow,” he says briskly.

“Ties make me feel like I’m choking,” says Clint defensively.

“I see. I’m afraid I find it a bit of a mystery that you could find yourself short of breath when two inches of slack is permissible by dress code, but we’ll move on. Do CLEAN ties somehow make your suffocation problem worse? If I’m not mistaken, I believe this is ketchup. And this is barbeque sauce.”

“Yessir,” sighs Clint.

“Your shirt tails are untucked most of the way. You are not wearing a belt. Your slacks aren’t pressed, your blazer is missing entirely…”

Clint’s mind races to try to remember where his blazer even IS. Oh yeah. There was that night a couple of weeks ago when he met that girl, Natasha, from Saint Mary’s across the river, behind the football field at midnight. God, she’s hot. Let him feel her up, too. Her nipples had been hard. Let him slide his fingers into her panties, feel her pussy. He hadn’t been really sure what he’d been doing but after she’d sort of showed him how to move his finger, she’d gasped really loud and her legs had clamped down on his hand and she’d bitten her lip and shivered all over. Then, oh praise all things holy, she had opened his pants and touched him, jerked him off right there in the tall grass behind the stadium, and when he’d come in her hand it had been the most amazing fuckin’ thing ever! He’s…..pretty sure his blazer is still out there somewhere. Totally. Worth. It.

“Mr. Barton, are you even listening to me?” demands Coulson, sounding frustrated.

“Yessir,” he sighs.

“Very well. I’ll continue. Finally, your shoes are appropriate gym wear but not remotely fitting for classroom attendance. I there anything you’d like to say in your own defense?”

Clint crams his hands in his pockets and glares at Coulson, although it’s probably not much of a glare, because he can’t hold the man’s gaze for more than a few seconds.

“No Sir,” he says mulishly. “Could we just get on with this?”

“Get on with what, Mr. Barton? What do you think is going to happen?”

“You’re gonna fuckin’ expel me like every other place has done and send me packin’, so just do it already and quit makin’ me stand here feeling stupid.”

The tips of Mr. Coulson’s fingers under his chin are the last thing he expects to feel, and he’s too startled to resist when the man forces his head up so he can look at Clint’s face, where Clint is embarrassingly close to tears. His eyes slide sideways and away, but Coulson is firm.

“Look at me, Clint,” he says firmly. Clint tries to shake his head, but he can’t, the man’s fingers won’t let go. Reluctantly, he looks at the face again. “I’m not going to expel you,” says the headmaster in a quiet voice.

“Y…you’re not?” he blurts out in shock.

“No. But I am going to punish you.” Clint’s belly does a queasy sort of roll and he feels all the spit in his mouth dry up. He doesn’t get that. Sure, he’s sick of detention, and this time it’s probably gonna be something really sucky, like cleaning out the port-a-johns by the soccer fields, but it’s not that big a deal. He honestly has no idea why Coulson’s voice telling him that has him tied up in a knot.

“H…how?” he whispers, breathless. Coulson smiles at him, a small smile, one that makes Clint’s spine tingle, and slowly turns his head to look at the wall. Clint’s eyes follow his gaze, to the thing hanging on the wall where the headmaster is looking. It’s a paddle. It’s more than two feet long and almost half an inch thick, and has holes drilled in the end in a diamond pattern. He swallows hard against rising panic. He can’t be serious. Coulson’s not really going to….going to SPANK him. Is he? That’s like, so forty years ago! His brain supplies him with a memory, of the day he was enrolled here, an explanation of the contract he’d signed agreeing to abide by the rules….and the consequences if he broke them. Disciplinary measures might include detention, writing lines, in school suspension, chores, kp duty, and corporal punishment. He remembers the secretary who had been explaining the contract to him. She was pretty, so he hadn’t paid a lot of attention to what he’d been signing. She’d told him….oh yeah, she’d told him not to worry too much about that last one, because it was hardly ever used anymore.

“You can’t,” he protests shrilly.

“I assure you that I can,” says Coulson smoothly, walking over to retrieve the barbaric thing from the wall. He slaps the flat of it against his palm, and it makes a nasty thwapping sound. Clint’s eyes widen in horror.

“Please Sir,” he babbles desperately, “Gimme more detention, as much as you want. I’ll do a lot better, I swear! I’ll peel potatos and wash dishes the rest of the year, and I won’t get in trouble anymore, I promise! Just…please don’t!”

Coulson sighs and he looks a little sad.

“I’m sorry it’s come to this, Mr. Barton. You’re a bright young man and I see potential in you, but your behavior is just too far out of hand for detention to be sufficient anymore. Step to the desk, bend over, and place your elbows on the surface.”

“Please,” whispers Clint, his feet feeling glued to the floor.

“Mr. Barton,” says the headmaster coolly. “If you are not in position by the time I count to three, you will return to this office every day for a week to be paddled again. One…”

Clint, aghast at the threat, scrambles to obey. The desk is so shiny he can sort of see his reflection in the surface. His eyes are big and scared. He clenches his fists. He’s never felt so vulnerable in his life. He’s never been spanked before. How bad is it going to be? The paddle presses softly against his bottom through his pants, and he gasps a little. It pulls back, and he holds his breath, squeezing his eyes shut and promising himself he’s not going to yell, not going to make a sound.

WHAP!

The paddle impacts against his backside sharply, driving his hips forward a little, into the edge of the desk. His eyes fly open in astonishment. Geez, it smarts like a bitch. He gasps a little but gets himself under control and back into position. The headmaster doesn’t waste any time. The paddle cracks down again. He’s a little readier for it this time, his arms braced and his feet planted more firmly, but it still rocks him. He doesn’t whimper. Not quite. He grits his teeth and breathes hard through his nose. He’s not letting this sadistic fuck break him. No way in hell. After the fifth painful swat, Clint becomes embarrassingly aware of two seemingly contradictory things happening to him at once. He’s gasping for breath because every impact seems to force his from his lungs, and his eyes are watering. A lot. There is a part of him that wants very much to break down and bawl right about now. Even more disturbingly, something else is happening to his body that makes his face flush and his stomach tighten. To his horror and humiliation, he’s getting _hard._ His dick is stiffening inside his pants. The paddle cracks across his bottom again and he makes a muffled sound from between his closed lips. He honestly has no idea whether it’s meant to be a whimper or a groan. Or pain or pleasure. He doesn’t LIKE this. He DOESN’T. It fucking hurts. He doesn’t want to cry, doesn’t want this awful man to see him break down. And he really, REALLY doesn’t want him to see Clint’s….predicament. Mr. Coulson paddles him three more times, then stops. Clint’s shaking from the effort of controlling his reactions. He gulps in several huge, gasping breaths and starts to stand up. The headmaster’s hand on the small of his back holds him in place.

“If you’re determined to show no remorse, Mr. Barton, this is only going to get worse. I do assure you, you are going to get tired of this long before my arm does. Now, pull down your pants.”

Clint’s brain has a grand mal seizure at these words. The only things rattling around in the bits of his mind not having convulsions are….Jesus Christ, he’ll be able to SEE, and….Oh fuck, I’m not wearing any underwear.

“No,” he whispers desperately. “Please. I….I’m very sorry, Sir. I’ve….I’ve learned my lesson.”

“I don’t think so, Mr. Barton. If you don’t wish to cooperate, I’m very capable of taking care of this for you. It is your choice.”

Oh shit, oh fuck. This can’t be happening. But the thought of the older man’s hands that close to his stiff cock is mortifying, so he stands up a little, and with trembling fingers, unfastens his pants and lowers them reluctantly to his knees. Flushed with humiliation, he bends back over the desk.

“Interesting,” comments Coulson. Clint flinches in shock when he feels a cool hand run gently down the curve of his ass. God, he thinks in despair, that feels fuckin’ awesome, I’m so screwed. Can he tell? He has to concentrate really hard not to press himself back into that soft caress. His backside feels very warm, tingling with prickles of heat. The paddle had hurt a lot over his pants. He can’t imagine how much worse it’s going to be on bare skin.

Finding out, in this case, is accompanied by none of the sense of accomplishment one usually feels upon having one’s curiosity satisfied. Nope, no Sir, it’s something he could have gone on not knowing. The paddle on his bare bottom feels like the fires of hell. He’s unable to muffle his whimper this time.

“That’s a bit more like it,” says Mr. Coulson gently. “I know it hurts, Clint. You don’t have to pretend it doesn’t.”

The paddle cracks across his naked flesh over and over again. He skin feels like it’s going to ignite. He’s biting his lips to keep from crying out in pain by the third. He’s whimpering and flinching by seven. It hurts so damn much. It’s made worse by the fact that the headmaster keeps stopping every now and then to brush his hand or his fingers over Clint’s blistered skin, and his touch feels so good Clint wants to fall down and beg him to never stop. No matter how hard Coulson spanks him, his traitorous dick stays hard. He can feel a wet spot on his belly where he’s leaking all over himself. He wishes he could die. He wishes the headmaster would touch him some more. Then Mr. Coulson starts to talk to him.

“I’m disappointed in you, son,” CRACK. “I know you’re a good boy.” WHACK! “I know somewhere inside, you want to be good.” CRACK! “I know this hurts a great deal.” The paddle falls twice this time, and Clint is unable to hold back the mewl of pain that escapes his lips. “You’ve been really appallingly naughty, I’m afraid it’s going to take a lot of punishment to wipe the slate clean.” Two more cruel whacks, and Clint wails in pain.

“Please,” he cries in a thread, wavering voice. “Please Sir, no more! It hurts so bad! I promise I’ll be really good!”

The only response to this is three hard smacks in quick succession. Tears well up in Clint’s eyes.

“I’m SO SORRY!” he yelps, agonized, when the paddle cracks across the backs of his legs. Jesus, shit, that hurts! A tiny sob escapes, though he tries to hold it in.

“I’m glad you’re sorry, Clint,” says Mr. Coulson sympathetically. “Unfortunately, all boys are sorry while they’re being punished. We still have quite a ways to go.”

Hearing this, knowing the end isn’t in sight, Clint loses his battle with his tears and pain. The next blow wrings a wavering cry from his body, and the one after that shakes him with a sob. After that, he breaks down in tears. Mr. Coulson doesn’t stop the hard paddling, and Clint just keeps apologizing and pleading through his sobbing, unable to control it at all once he’s started. He finds that, aside from the horrid pain in his bottom, he really wishes he could make Mr. Coulson not be angry at him. He’s never been in  such pain in his life. It’s horrible, obscene. It’s also making him so hard he’s afraid he’s gonna come on the headmaster’s desk. He’s so lost in his tears and remorse that it takes Coulson a few tries to get through to him.

“Clint,” he says gently. “Clint!”

“Hnnngh?” whimpers Clint.

“You’re doing so well. I’m proud of you. I know it’s hurting you, so much. There’s a lot to pay for, sweet boy. I’m going to have to paddle you for another good ten minutes at least.”

“Please!,” cries Clint piteously. “I can’t! Oh please Sir, anything, I’ll do anything, but please PLEASE don’t spank me anymore!” There comes then a rather alarmingly long pause, during which he bawls and begs softly not to be paddled any more.

“All right,” says Coulson at last. “I’m proud of how brave you’ve been, so I’m going o give you a choice, okay sweet boy?”

“Yuh….yes Sir,” says Clint, trying to muffle his sobs into his arms.

“I can keep paddling you for ten more minutes like I said, or…”

“Or?” sniffles Clint wetly.

“Or I can finish your punishment another way.”

“Wh…what way?” asks the boy tremulously. There is a long pause during which he starts to grow nervous about how Coulson’s going to answer him. He makes a strangled sound of utter shock when he feels something cool and dry brush gently against his naked asshole, tickling the little pucker a bit. “Ah!” he cries amid his tears. He shudders.

“I’ll fuck you, naughty boy, in your tight little asshole, while you’re crying from your paddling.”

“Ohgod,” Clint whines. The words from the headmaster make his cock twitch. He tries to think about algebra or the librarian, who is a truly ugly and frightening person, but neither helps. He’s heard of what the man’s saying, of course. He knows, at least intellectually, what being gay entails. He’s messed around with girls. He’s just never actually had intercourse. And he’s never thought about doing it with a dude. No, definitely not. Weird dreams don’t count. Ones that wake him up, sweaty and hard and shaken. Ones that scare him, because in them he is helpless, being taken against his will…..and he LOVES it. No, those don’t count as things he thinks of, wants. “I don’t want to,” he whispers in a small voice.

A big hand reaches around his hip and closes gently on his now achingly hard cock and he cries out in shock again. His whole body jolts at the contact.

“Do you not?” muses Mr. Coulson mildly.

“I….no! That’s….it’ll hurt!” he protests wildly.

“Oh yes,” agrees the headmaster. “It will hurt, rather a lot, I expect. You’re being punished, after all. You’ll cry, and probably beg me to  stop. But I won’t, sweet boy. I won’t stop, and your poor little hole will ache and burn. But you can’t say you don’t want to, Clint, because your body betrays you. You DO want. You want to be taken, you want me to keep touching you. You want someone to stop you, punish your bad behavior, make you the good boy you want to be. I’ll do that, sweetheart. I’ll punish you every time you need it, and I’ll never give up on you, and I’ll believe in you and be proud of you. You’re so lovely, little boy, and all you need is someone to care for you and hold you accountable for your actions. Detention will never work for you, love, because THIS is what you need.” The hand lets go of his cock and the paddle smacks against his blazing hot backside again, and he wails once more in hurt.

“Please,” he sobs.

Another shattering stroke makes him howl.

“Please what, baby boy?”

Again. Oh FUCK it hurts. So. Much!

“Please don’t spank me anymore, Sir!” he bawls.

He almost screams when Mr. Coulson brings the paddle down harder than ever.

“What do you want me to do instead?”

“Ohhh oww, no more,” he cries plaintively. “I…ohh…do it!”

CRACK.

“Do what, Mr. Barton?”

“I can’t say it,” he pleads, and it rewarded with another hard spank.

“Oh, you can,” he’s assured, and the paddle hurts him once more. His bottom is on fire, seeming to throb in time with his pounding heart. God, he wants it to end. He’s almost incoherent with pain and terror.

“Puh…please Sir, p…punish me the…the other way,” he whimpers.

“What way?” asks Coulson ruthlessly, and spanks him again.

“Ohh,” sobs Clint. “F…fuck me, Sir, please, just ohgod please STOP!”

The paddle is set down on the desk in front of him and the headmaster’s strong hands are touching him gently stroking his burning backside and his back. He cries brokenheartedly while he’s petted, and leans into the touch without realizing it. When the hands leave him, he whines sadly. He hears Mr. Coulson chuckle softly, and the snap of a bottle’s lid being opened. His eyes fly open wide with shock and his body goes rigid in protest when something cool and wet touches his asshole softly, then pushes firmly inside him. His fevered brain at first thinks he’s doing it, Mr.  Coulson is fucking him, but then he realizes it’s the man’s finger. Oh geez, he thinks dazedly, that hurts a little, what’s his dick gonna feel like? I can’t, there’s no way! He whimpers softly. Oh, it feels strange! He’s trembling, and it makes him feel like a stupid little coward, that he’s so frightened. His dick apparently isn’t connected to the rest of him at all, because he’s still so hard it _hurts._ More than anything right now he wishes he could stop crying. Wishes he could tough it out, show this man he can’t break Clint. Even as he thinks it, he knows he’s way too late for that. He’s pretty much already broken. If the headmaster could have just been a dick, he’d have been okay. It’s what he’s used to, what he expects. They all think he’s a fuckup, and he’s learned how not to care. He’s spent so long building up walls to protect him from the hurt of THAT, he doesn’t have any defenses prepared to help him deal with THIS. He’s blindsided from all directions by shit he has no mechanism for dealing with! He’s never been spanked before. Punched, yeah. Backhanded in the mouth, sure. Bent over and paddled like a naughty little boy? Nope. And it _hurts._ It hurts in a different way than being slapped or socked in the mouth. Then, instead of calling him stupid, worthless, a waste of time, or any number of other insults Clint’s used to, Mr. Coulson says he has potential, that he’s proud of him, that he’s not going to give up on him. Further than that, Mr. Coulson is also strangely _hot_. Clint’s not the only one who thinks so. A lot of the other boys whisper to each other, especially at night in their dorms, about how he’s nice, and really a lot stronger than you might think, and how on occasion, he takes his suit coat off and loosens his tie and rolls up his sleeves and you can SEE how muscular he is, and when he plays tennis or swims and you really CAN see it, it’s totally wild how ripped the man is. Topping it off is the fact that he’s harder than he’s ever been in his life, even more than when he hit puberty and woke up every morning shaking with the urges of his body and the echo of the things he dreamed, if he didn’t wake up with his own spunk staining his shorts and drying sticky on his belly. It’s too  much, and he simply can’t defend himself against this kind of onslaught. So he cries. He bites his lip and whimpers and sniffles while the headmaster pumps his finger slowly in and out of his hole, gasping when the man does something with his finger, presses on a spot deep inside him that makes his toes curl and steals his breath. What the fuck? That’s….geez, that’s like the best thing he’s ever felt in his life and why the HELL hadn’t he known his body was hiding a secret like that from him? Coulson does it again and he’s unable to stifle his hungry moan when blinding pleasure punches through his guts.

“God,” he gasps, panting through his tears, his body pressing back into Mr. Coulson’s finger just a little, rocking back on his heels to try to deepen the inward stroke of that finger.

“You see, little boy,” purrs the headmaster, “when you’re good, you’re going to find out I can make you feel SO wonderful.”

Clint whines a little through his teeth when the finger is removed, feeling bereft.

“But,” continues Coulson, “today you’ve been quite deplorably naughty, and I’m afraid your punishment isn’t over. Tell me, have you ever done this? Ever let another boy, another man, finger your asshole? Let him push his cock into you, fuck you? Hm?”

“No!” cries Clint, terrified and brutally aroused at the same time. Intellectually, he does realize the way two men have sex, he’s just never really thought about it a lot before.

“Poor baby,” whispers the headmaster, leaning over Clint’s body so he can put his mouth close to the boy’s ear. “Your first time, and you’re being _punished._ Taken, like a bad little boy, stretched open, sore and aching, and _helpless_ to do anything about it.”

God, what’s wrong with him? He’s always known he doesn’t fit in with other kids his age, but now…. Because what Mr. Coulson’s saying? It scares him, almost paralyzes him with fear. What he’s saying he’s gonna do…Clint knows it’s going to hurt him. It has to. The paddle has hurt him. His backside is _throbbing_ in pain. His skin is so hot it almost feels boiled. And now that it’s over, the spanking part, there is something in him that wants to do something to make the headmaster paddle him some more! That’s sick, right? That his dick is so hard from this that he’s pretty sure if Mr. Coulson grabs him again, he’s gonna come all over the man’s hand. And even worse, though he’s really frightened, when he hears what’s going to happen, he has to bite the inside of his mouth hard to keep from moaning. In his head, his traitorous brain is chanting, “Yes, yes, do it. Fuck me. I deserve it. Punish me. Hard. Do it hard. I want it. Oh god, please, please fuck me.”

The headmaster does. Clint’s body goes rigid when he hears the sound of a zipper.

“Oh no,” he whispers, “please Sir, please don’t! I’ll be good, I swear. Please Sir, I don’t want to! It’s gonna hurt, oh please PLEASE don’t Sir!”

“I’m sorry, son. This is going to hurt, you’re right. Try to relax, don’t fight, or it will hurt more than it has to. I’m not going to damage you, just punish you. You’ll cry some more, but that’s all right. Are you ready?”

“No,” he wails desperately.

“Would you like me to paddle you some more?”

“NO!” shouts Clint, wishing he dared reach back and cover his abused bottom with his hands, but still enough in his right mind to realize that would be a very bad idea. “No…I….I’m ready Sir. Please Sir…please don’t make it hurt too much…” (When he begs this favor, Clint very nearly loses his place in the roleplay and turns back into himself, because Jesus, his dick is so hard he’s gonna die if Phil doesn’t GET ON WITH IT, but it’s too fucking good to stop now!)

He whimpers when he feels something hard press against his hole. He’s breathing way too fast, his heart rate as fast and frantic as a captive bird’s. Mr. Coulson’s hands close gently around his hips, his thumbs brushing softly against Clint’s skin. God, his hands feel so good, Clint almost forgets the reason they’re there. Then he feels an increasing pressure against his asshole and begs again to be let go. There is no response. His racing thoughts are shrieking in his head that this is the headmaster’s DICK pushing into his ass, that it’s huge, it’s not going to fit, it’s going to rip him open.

It doesn’t, but oh god, it burns. His tight hole stings and aches as it’s forced slowly open to accept the invasion of the headmaster’s cock. Coulson doesn’t force his way into Clint’s body brutally, but he is steady and he is inexorable. The sensation is utterly overwhelming. Tears run down his cheeks to drip on the gleaming wood of the desk, and he writhes helplessly and sobs anew, pleading when he has enough breath for words for the man to stop, to please not, to take it out. His begging is ignored, and after a time that feels both interminable and way, way too fast, the hands on his hips grip him a little harder and pull him back firmly against Coulson’s body and he realizes it’s done…he’s all the way in, his cock buried inside Clint’s hole as deep as it will go. There’s a long pause during which he feels like he can barely breathe, then he feels the HUGE (it has to be huge, right? The size of a bowling pin at least?) cock inside him start to withdraw slowly.

“No,” he sobs frantically. “No, don’t!”

“Hush,” says Coulson gently, his hands gently stroking Clint’s hips and along his thighs and over his lower back. Then he shoves his cock back all the way into the sobbing boy’s hole, and Clint howls in pain. God, oh God it burns, it aches horribly. He cries helplessly while the headmaster fucks him, ruthlessly. It’s slow, but the man thrusts himself deeply, all the way in, never slowing, never relenting. Clint feels like he’s writhing helplessly on a spit, skewered and utterly vulnerable. The cock inside him feels ENORMOUS, as though it cannot possibly fit inside him, except it does. The burn eases after a minute or two (though it feels like hours), though he still aches abominably. Through his breathless sobbing, he becomes aware that the ache is in his dick too, although he aches there because he’s still so aroused he could scream, still wants to come so bad he can’t stand it. He’s dazed and totally confused by his body’s reaction to being violated. He can’t stop bawling or pleading for mercy, but he can’t stop wanting, no NEEDING to come so bad it becomes part of the reason he’s crying.

“Please,” he whispers. Something in the tone of his voice makes the headmaster pause in his unrelenting assault on Clint’s sore asshole. Coulson makes a considering noise in his throat, and one of the hands on Clint’s hips slides down, brushes around his thigh and grasps the boy’s leaking erection tight in his fist.

“Listen to me, Clint,” the older man hisses, his hand gripping and sliding up Clint’s cock, making him whine and squirm. “If I let you come, if I work your cock in my fist right now until you spill in my hand…and I’ll come in your tight little ass when you do, by the way….if I do that, you’re going to promise to try very hard to be a good boy. If you lie to me now, I promise you are NOT going to enjoy the consequences. If I see your name come across my desk again and you don’t have a VERY good explanation for it…do you have any idea what is going to happen to you?”

“ _Nnghh,”_ gasps Clint, who is trying to listen to what the man is saying, honest he is, but is having a hard time thinking about anything but how incredible the hand on his dick feels right now. “N…no Sir?”

Coulson snaps his hips forward, ramming himself into Clint’s body viciously and making Clint yowl in pain.

“If I let you come, darling boy, and you get in trouble again, then I’ll be seeing you….every day….for a week. _Ungh…._ And I’ll bend you over this desk….and paddle your bare ass….until you’re a sobbing mess….and then…. _hngh…._ fuck you, screaming, every day…. _Think_ of it Clint….how it will feel…. Bending over, your hands shaking, pulling down your pants…. Baring yourself for _another_ punishment….. when you’re already SO sore, so raw inside…. Begging and crying before I even lay down that first….stroke…. because you’re already hurting so bad from…. The day before.”

“Ohh…” whimpers Clint, who is so close to wrecked he’d promise just about anything right now if Coulson will just keep touching him. “Oh, I promise,” he cries, in a voice that is ragged with pain and need. “Please!”

The fist on his cock squeezes tightly and pumps up and down, sliding easily over the trembling length of his arousal because he’s so turned on he’s leaked pre-come all over himself. The cock filling his hole, stretching him wide and painfully around its girth, slides in and out of him, not so ruthlessly now, and then on an inward glide, rubs over that same spot Mr. Coulson had found with his finger earlier, and suddenly Clint is simply overwhelmed, swamped by an orgasm so powerful it is only the headmaster’s grip on his hip and invading presence inside his body that keeps his knees from buckling. He shouts and then bites his own forearm, almost screaming. The difference between coming….and coming while he has something shoved in his ass….is night and day. The way it feels when his hole clamps down on the headmaster’s dick makes his eyes roll back in his skull and his knees shake. Mr. Coulson’s thrusts turn erratic, and the hand on Clint’s hip convulses, the fingers digging into his flesh. His guttural moan when he loses himself, and the pulsing of his cock in Clint’s body, are somehow both strange and beautiful in the boy’s ears. Strange because these are not sounds or feelings one should associate with one’s headmaster, and beautiful because Clint finds it amazing that it is himself who has brought Mr. Coulson to this losing of himself. They stay there, frozen in a sort of tableau of pain and pleasure, bodies still mated together, trembling, tears still streaming down Clint’s face, Phil’s hands steadying his body.

“Clint,” comes the whisper. He’s not sure how he knows, but he’s immediately aware that this is Phil, and that’s all right, because his mind-blowing orgasm has wrenched him right out of juvenile delinquency and into his own head.

“Master,” he sighs in a wobbly voice. Phil recognizes it for what it is, and Clint finds himself lowered carefully to the floor, a blanket and Phil’s arms wrapped around his shoulders while he comes completely unglued. He turns his face into Coulson’s chest and cries. Is it weird that he’s not crying because he’s hurting, or because anything they’ve done has upset him? He’s just….crying because he can’t NOT cry right now, not until the sheer, mindblowing intensity of the scene has drained from his trembling, shuddering body. Phil….and Clint is already back to himself enough to ask himself WHY he continues to be surprised….doesn’t throw a pall on the emotion he’s feeling by asking if he’s all right, or trying to comfort him. Phil, as he has done from the very first, knows what he needs. His fingers drift softly through the tousled blond strands of the archer’s hair, while he presses his lips to Clint’s bowed head and murmurs soft nonsense to him, telling him that he’s gorgeous, amazing, that he loves him. Unlike an emotional meltdown, Clint’s reaction passes pretty quickly, and it’s just a few minutes before he’s just leaning against Phil’s body and smiling a little sleepily, his hand lifting to go around Phil’s neck while he sighs contentedly.

“All right, beautiful boy?” Phil asks him softly. Clint sighs peacefully.

“Amazing.”

“You’re going to really feel what that paddle did to your ass tomorrow,” chuckles the older man a little ruefully.

  
“S’okay. S’what I wanted, Exactly what,” he mutters back. “Been thinkin’ about something like that since the first time you spanked and fucked me in your office.”

“I’ll bet you haven’t thought about it many more times than I have since then.”

Clint smirks a little.

“Sir, I think about sex like _all the time._ An’ all I gotta do is hang out and work on my hand and do stuff you want me to. YOU gotta run the whole west coast division!”

“I’m an excellent multi-tasker,” says Phil comfortably, his other hand sliding over Clint’s hip to stroke once over his punished ass. Clint hisses in pain and whines, which makes Phil laugh.

“Speaking of offices,” says Clint, lifting his head to look around a little because the trouble Phil’s gone to to make the scene they’ve just finished authentic is impressive, “where’d you even GET all those plaques and shit?”

“Please,” scoffs Phil. “I can call in a tactical nuclear strike if I want to, and you think a few dozen awards is something? Baby boy, to give you the things you dream about, I would do one hell of a lot more than requisition phony trophies!”

“Hm,” says Clint, feeling warm and gooey inside because he’s high as a kite on the chemicals his brain pumps into his body after Phil has reduced him to a sobbing wreck and because he’s not sure he’s ever felt more cared-for in his life than he does right at this moment. “So next time, we do one of YOUR fantasies, Master.”

Phil hums in a pleased way and his arms tighten a little around Clint.

“I’m living mine, baby boy. A cocky, disrespectful, brilliant archer became my fantasy the day I watched you walk back into HQ after that op in Bolivia, with Collier on your heels trying his damndest to dress you down and make you pay attention to him.”

“I remember that. Jesus, Sir. That was six years ago!” exclaims Clint, startled. He feels Phil pressing his smile into the top of Clint’s head.

“Mm,” he agrees. “You finally stopped once you’d gotten a ways in front of him, though I’m still not sure how you managed that because as I recall, you were walking and he was trotting to keep up with you, and you drew and fired that bow before he even registered you’d pulled it. That arrow went straight to the apple he had in his hand, half eaten…I assume on the flight back…and yanked it out of his grasp and pinned it to the wall thirty feet behind him.”

“Good times,” grins Clint, who is recalling the look on Collier’s face with relish. “He turned a really interesting color and said he was going to have me up on attempted murder charges.”

“You said, ‘I hit what I aim at, Collier, just like I hit the target in Bolivia, and I didn’t need to report every move I made to you for you to analyze it while we sat on our asses and watched the guy make a clean getaway to Chile because YOU had to take into account whether the fruit truck approaching in the opposite lane was going 22 or 23 miles an hour! And it was, just so you know, going 24.3 miles an hour.’”

“I wondered how you knew, if you were just winding him up,” Phil muses. “So I pulled the surveillance photos from the op and studied them, and the report, trying to figure it out.”

“Huh,” says Clint, “I never knew you did that. How’d I do it then, if you know?”

“My first thought was that you made it up. Collier always was a little more concerned with protocols than he was with outcomes. Then I tried triangulating where I guessed you’d been hiding, try to figure it out that way. While I was thinking about it, I was staring at once of the street views and it came to me. Your file said you refused to use a range finder on your bow because you claimed not to need it.”

“True,” says Clint grinning more widely.

“There were four cars parked on the street on the westbound side. You knew how much space was between each car and counted how long it took the target’s vehicle to pass them, and did the math.”

“Well, to be fair, I didn’t actually DO the math until we were on the plane and headed home, because I didn’t NEED to know how fast it was going.”

“Collier got in your face after that and yelled, ‘That’s SA Collier to you, agent,’ and you said…”

“Trust me, _Collier,_ there’s nothing special about you,” supplies Clint, snickering a little as he recalls the look on the handler’s face. He’s pretty sure the guy took early retirement not long after that.

They haul themselves to their feet at last, using each other and the edge of the desk to help them, and restore their clothing to some semblance of order. On their way back to Phil’s apartment, Clint can’t stop looking at Phil, feeling kind of amazed. Phil notices his scrutiny and lifts an eyebrow in inquiry.

“Six YEARS, Sir?” he finally blurts out in astonishment.

“Approximately,” says Phil, looking a little chagrined.

“Oh. My. God,” mouths Hawkeye silently, and then, “You are getting one HELL of a sex fantasy fulfilled. Anything you want, Sir. Name it.”

“How do you know it’s won’t be something you won’t like?’ says Phil, gentle rebuke in his voice.

“Because,” says Clint, following Phil into his apartment, “you’re kinda my fantasy too, Sir…and if that’s true, then we want the same things.”

“I suppose there’s merit to that theory,” muses Phil, directing their course to the bedroom where he informs Clint he can do what he likes with the clothes, but to take them off and get rid of the horrible old tie. He then ties Clint’s wrists to the headboard with it and proceeds to render him a helpless, frantic mess before relenting and granting his soft pleas.

Some time later, when Clint has regained his composure somewhat, he asks Phil what it’s for, because Clint was pretty sure he was done for the day after the roleplay, and this had surprised him.

“I wanted to touch YOU after that, not a teenaged boy. Oh don’t worry,” he hurries to say when Clint starts to look distressed. “I loved that, every second of it, it was incredibly hot! But tonight, when we go to bed, I wanted it to be YOU who had the most recent memory of my touch on your body, not a character that you’ve played. I don’t know, I suppose that’s a little silly.”

“It’s not,” says Clint quickly. “It’s really, really not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only bits and pieces of the negotiation between these partners about what's going to happen when they go into their roleplay are described. I have taken care to make it clear, however, that a LOT of talking happens between them before they launch into this. Take the hint, guys. If you and your partner want to get into some sexual roleplay, that's awesome. It can be a lot more fun than should be even legal! But human beings have pasts, and issues with those pasts. It's stupid to ASSUME that what you're getting ready to do won't trigger something unfortunate. So make sure you talk things through before you expect each other to play the part of a minor, an authority figure who's going to take advantage of said minor, a policeman, a prison guard, a criminal...whatever it is. 
> 
> I do apologize if anybody reading this fic knows or is a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. I personally have known a number of Pikes in my life, and some have been very dear friends. I admit to a rather petty reason for choosing them, as my ex was (is) a Pike and I enjoyed putting his face on the fired office worker in my own mind. Guys in fraternities in general are no more likely than anybody else to be criminals, and most of them are perfectly nice people. I just needed to put the paddle in the story.


	14. Part 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the first part about Clint's return to New York and active duty. It essentially centers around interactions between some of the team and contains characterization and is nearly completely devoid of angst, except on Tony's part, because let;s face it, Tony Stark is pretty much the poster child for angst once you get past his attitude and slick veneer and clever repartee. It's short compared to some of my other ones, but PLEASE read end notes for the reason!
> 
> Oh, and if you're only reading this for the slash, be warned that this part only contains hetero sex!

It’s hard to leave. Since an archer with an injured hand is pretty much NOT an archer, Clint’s return to active status has been delayed more than three months. Three months he’s spent in San Francisco, out of Fury’s clutches so the Director won’t cause him permanent damage with his zeal. The medical staff on both coasts who have treated him had insisted on it. It’s enough time to grow accustomed to being with Phil. Enough time for him to feel like it’s home. It’s not easy to get on that quinjet and fly back to New York.

It’s also easy to get on that quinjet and fly back to New York, because Natasha’s at the controls, a sassy grin on her face, her big blue eyes looking him up and down appraisingly. It’s not that he hasn’t seen her, because she’s managed to visit a couple of times. It’s that they haven’t been able to take more than a couple of days here and there to spend time together since she’d been recalled to duty, and he’s missed her. Fiercely. Being torn in two directions this strongly is a little confusing, but he’s trying to stop worrying the thing to death. He’s not stupid. When the Black Widow tells you to stop being an idiot, you really try to stop.

Going home with Tasha isn’t the only reason it’s easy to get on the ‘jet. Phil will be following them to New York in about a week, where he’s going to spend several weeks helping design, test and implement some new gear Stark has been working on and generate the protocols and procedures for their utilization by SHIELD operatives. Fury hasn’t spent a lot of time overseeing the purely human divisions of SHIELD since he first assembled the Avengers. He’s too busy choosing which distress calls they should answer, trying to keep them all in line, trying to keep them heroic in the public’s eyes even when in the course of saving a town or city or the planet, they make a few people speculate that there’s not a lot left once they’re done to call “saved.” To be fair, he’s also working pretty hard to make sure the people who had bankrolled the Initiative in the first place don’t get to call the shots. The ubiquitous “Council,” who they have heard of but know little about, would like nothing better than to have all six of them on leashes they can tug when they please. Thinking of Thor and Bruce, Clint sometimes wonders exactly who Fury’s protecting in this particular scenario.

When they land on a brand new helipad atop the huge old mansion in Manhattan that SHIELD has been renovating, he’s gratified to notice sniper posts at all four corners, built exactly the way he’s requested them.

“They’ve made a ton of progress,” he says as they disembark from the ‘jet.

“No,” says Tasha, smirking a little. “They’ve finished. Welcome to Avengers mansion, Hawkeye. Want me to show you to your rooms?”

“No, shit, really?” he asks, amazed. It doesn’t seem that long ago that he’d suffered through a bunch of annoying questions from architects.

“Well yeah,” she says, rolling her eyes a little. “It’s been almost six months since you left for Kosovo.”

This is a little startling to him, but then he remembers that he was unconscious for a really long time. Ok, comatose. Whatever. He mostly chooses not to think about that, about how it must have affected the people who care about him. Upon opening the door to his new apartments, he abruptly realizes that this list is longer than he would have thought, because the rooms are crammed with people shouting Welcome Home. There’s a sign, even. It has really horrible little birds and bows and arrows painted on it. His plans for immediately taking Tasha to bed and not letting her out of it until tomorrow are given a backseat. He’s pretty sure doing it NOW would be kinda rude. There’s food, and a cake (the bird on the cake actually DOES look like a hawk, even if it’s purple), and someone has put vases of flowers on most of the surfaces (that has to have been Jane, as it certainly wasn’t Tasha, and he’s pretty sure Darcy’s responsible for the sign). Thor and Jane are here, as are Pepper and Tony, Bruce, Darcy, Director Fury, Maria, Jasper and a few other people whose presence surprises him. Tracy Jensen, his physical therapist. Carl Adkins and Ang Chen, agents with whom he’s gone on quite a few missions and who tended to find him funnier than whatever handler they’d been working with at the time ever did. They’ve both been on missions with Phil as handler too, and the lot of them have had a beer together a time or three. Clint’s never had a party thrown in his honor. It’s kind of surreal, to have it demonstrated in such a concrete way that he has _friends_ now, people who have missed him and are happy enough at his return to celebrate it. He has no idea how to act at first, and has a feeling he probably looks a little shell-shocked until he gets used to the idea, and remembers to tell himself that these are mostly people he knows and likes. Besides, Stark’s supplied the food and drinks, and it’d just be a shame to waste that.

They’ve given him rooms on the top floor. It’s not nearly so high as the Tower, or the West Coast HQ, only five stories, but it’s near Central Park, and he has a balcony. He’s had a few beers. Not enough to be drunk, just a little light-headed, and decides to check it out and get some air. It’s nice. There are a couple of chairs and a little table and some potted trees. He really hopes someone’s going to water them, because he’s pretty sure he’s going to forget. He wonders who designed his balcony, because there’s a trellis here, a large sturdy one, with supports at each corner of the balcony and a latticework roof. There are vines starting to twine their way up the sides, but they haven’t gotten very far yet. They’ll cover the whole thing within a year or so, he guesses, but no matter what covers it, it’s clear to him that the trellis is a perch put here just because someone took into account the fact that he likes to climb things when he wants to think. As he peers up at the roof of it, he can see that from upon it, he’s going to have easy access to the roof. Well, easy for him, anyway. He’s feeling pretty good tonight, and is satisfied to prop a hip on the balcony rail and look out over the dark shadows that make up the park. He’s aware when the door opens, but doesn’t turn around. There aren’t any enemies here. How marvelous, he thinks, that he’s able to just sit comfortably when someone’s walking up behind him, because he’s absolutely confident in his certainty that everyone in the rooms behind him is a friend, and that no one could get to him through them.

It’s Tony, and this _does_ surprise him a little. He likes Stark, and is pretty sure the feeling’s mutual, but their friendship has had its share of confrontations and minor arguments. And there was that time he and Tasha cleaned his clock the night he’d tried to flush his relationship with Pepper down the toilet. Still, he nods and lifts his beer towards Stark in acknowledgement. Tony waves his glass of some amber-colored liquid that is probably very expensive and which Phil would like and Clint almost certainly wouldn’t. Because he typically prefers to be the life of the party, Stark must want something, to come out here by himself.

“Stark,” he says genially, because no matter what small frictions have rubbed them the wrong way, Tony is still his friend, and without his help Clint wouldn’t have known how to help Tasha and very probably would have died in Kosovo. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you. But I wanted….well, thanks for being so fast, that’s all.”

“Oh,” says Tony, “Yeah, don’t mention it, Legolas. Thor would have been faster, but…” Clint laughs.

“But he couldn’t read a transmitter to save his life?”

“Assuming the transmitter was made of something that could kill him, yes,” agrees Tony.

“Anyway, I’m all right now, so you were fast enough.” Tony shrugs.

“Okay. You can erect the monument of choice in my honor in place of golden boy in Rockefeller Plaza,” he says casually, gesturing uptown with his glass. “But really, I wanted to let you know, we’ve been working on a design for your arrows. How’s this for genius? I’ve got this hollow shaft…okay I know all your arrows have hollow shafts…”

“Not the long distance ones,” Clint points out.

“Geez, talking to you is almost as bad as talking to Bruce sometimes. Fine, whatever. MOST of your arrows already have a hollow shaft. Do you want to hear this or not?”

“If I didn’t, would it stop you?” grins Clint.

“Of course not. Now act interested, you ingrate.”

“Happens that I _am_ interested, Stark. I’m just yankin’ your chain.”

“Okay, so up til now, any kind of effect we wanted you to deliver with an arrow….well, aside from pointy death….was contained within the head, and the rest of the arrow was standard. That’s worked great, and you’ve been a lot more versatile as an agent for a couple of years now, more than just a plain sniper. The only real drawback to them was the issue of the very limited payload you can pack into an arrowhead. Not to mention the fact that you had to have a bunch of different kinds of arrowheads to do all the stuff you need em for. You got your explosive head, your tranquilizer, your poison, acid, emp, tracker…”

“I’m pretty sure I’m familiar,” says Clint, interrupting him, because he’d really like to get around to having hot monkey sex with Tasha before it gets too late.

“Spoilsport,” grumps Tony. “Fine. Anyway, if you needed to deliver a higher volume of….whatever….knockout gas or drugs, poison, acid….any kind of liquid or gas, you couldn’t. But we’ve incorporated the shaft of the arrow as a compartment for the payload, whatever it is, into this new head design that works like a syringe, or a pump of sorts, and when it strikes a target, it activates and delivers the substance carried in the shaft. It’ll hold a hundred cc’s of fluid compared to the 20 you used to be able to deliver with the old design.”

“That’s….actually pretty fuckin’ cool,” says Clint, honestly pleased. Not only will it make him more effective in combat, but it kind of touches him that Stark’s taken the time to work on something like this that has no personal gain in it for him. However, this is Tony, and he could have waited until tomorrow to talk about this, inviting Clint down to the lab to check them out. “But it’s not why you came out here. Something up, Stark?”

“What? You question the idea of me wanting to brag about my newest, and extremely awesome by the way, invention?”

“Believe me, I never question that. But if you’d just wanted to brag, you’d have done it in front of a bigger audience.”

Tony scowls and turns to look out over the park too, his glass mostly forgotten in his hand.

“Forget it,” he mutters.

“Dude, seriously? You saved my life. I think you can probably talk to me about whatever the fuck’s eating at you, cause something is,” Clint replies, also turning his face back towards the park, so that Tony won’t feel obligated to look at him. Tony sighs.

“Does it ever feel like it’s choking you?” he asks softly. Clint blinks, not entirely sure what Tony’s talking about at first, but then Tony turns to him, an unhappy frown on his face, and stabs the medallion hanging from Clint’s throat with his finger. Ohhh.

“You mean my collar?”

“Yeah,” Tony mutters, looking away again.

“If you’re hoping I’ll say yes so we can commiserate over our personal angsts about this, I’m gonna disappoint you,” Clint warns. “The only time it chokes me is when I have to take it off.”

“How?” demands Stark. “How can that be? You’re a grown man, you’ve been taking care of yourself for longer than anybody should be expected to. How can it be that easy to just….let someone else take all of that away from you? How can that be easy to swallow?”

“First of all, I still take care of myself. Neither Phil or Tasha wants a lover they have to babysit all the time. Come on, Tony. Does Pepper tell you when to eat, what to wear, when you’re allowed to put on the suit and go fight crime?”

“No,” says Tony, the expression on his face sullen. “Well, she tells me what to wear sometimes.”

“Hm. Phil does that too, though Tasha never seems to notice a lot about what I’m wearing, unless it’s hard to tear off.”

“Jesus, Barton. TMI!”

“Hey, YOU brought it up. And don’t try to convince me that when Pepper tells you what to wear it’s not for twisted purposes and that it’s great, because I won’t believe you.”

“Well, yeah, but…”

“Shit, Tony. You get in the way of your own happiness more than anybody I’ve ever met. I’m sorry if I don’t identify with what you’re asking, but I’m getting everything I’ve ever wanted. When I didn’t even know what it meant, I was dreaming about someone who would own me, would use me, take me, whether I wanted  them to or not, and would still care about me. Now I have that. Every sick little fantasy I’ve ever had, and either Phil or Tasha is more than happy to fulfill them!”

“I don’t get how you can NOT find it emasculating to let someone…to not stand up for….fuck, I don’t know what I’m even saying. How do you do it? How do you feel okay with someone making you get on your knees and beg for whatever it is they want you to beg for? How?”

Clint laughs a little, not really AT Tony, because clearly he’s struggling, but at the irony of the question, that Tony’s asking him how he can be okay with the one thing he probably loves the MOST about being a sub.

“Tony, I never thought I’d be saying this, especially coming from a high school dropout to a guy who’s got multiple degrees in shit I can’t even pronounce…but you’re an idiot.”

“Fuck you, then Hawk. See if I ever help you hack classified files again.”

“Dude, chill. Seriously? You may be one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, but you’re not acting like it right now. You’re letting your issues run your brain and I’m sorry man, but that’s just stupid.”

Tony glares at him over the rim of the highball glass he’s apparently remembers he’s holding, tossing the rest of it back.

“All right then, if you’re so fucking smart, why am I stupid?”

Clint’s mind flounders a little, because even though he has no doubts (beyond accidentally hurting someone), it’s kind of hard to explain to someone outside of it. Tony may be a flippant son of a bitch, but it’s obvious he’s having a hard time. Clint would tell him to go talk to someone else, but he realizes that there’s not really anyone else who could give Tony the right perspective on this one.

“Okay, let’s try this. Do you think I’m weak?”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Answer the damn question, Stark, or I’ll push you off the balcony. Bet your suit can’t catch you before you hit the ground from just five stories.”

“Asshole. Fine. No, I don’t think you’re weak. You sleep with the Black Widow. That’s gotta be like…taking your life in your hands every time you take off your pants.” Tony shudders a little. “That woman is terrifying.”

Clint glance heavenward and offers up a tiny prayer that Tasha is not listening in on this conversation and that she never, ever hears about it.

“She’s not terrifying when she’s crying and begging me to stop,” he says with a feral smile.

“You’re lying,” says Tony.

“Nope.” Of course, he’s leaving out the part where she’s technically someone else at the time. “But that’s not what makes me not a weak person. Do you think I could kill you?”

“What? Jesus, Barton. Talking to you is like trying to herd ferrets. What does that have to do with anything. Ok, whatever. Not in the suit, no way.”

“But out of it?” Clint presses.

“Then yeah, probably. I don’t think I’d see the arrow coming.”

“And hand to hand?”

“Maybe,” says Tony reluctantly. “But I could kill you too, in the suit.”

“Since that was gonna be my next question anyway, that’s cool. And I have no doubt that you could.”

“Great. Awesome. We’re both totally badass, what’s your point.”

“Shit, Tony, you just made it for me, if you’ll think about it for a second. We _are_ badasses. I have no idea why you believe that submitting to your partner makes you weak, but you’re way off. It takes a really strong person to be able to let themselves be that vulnerable to a partner. You have to be pretty secure, know who you are, to be able to give that to someone. It takes courage. It’s not something that can be taken from us…well ok, under torture maybe, but then it wouldn’t be real submission, it’d be survival, so it doesn’t count….it’s something that has to be earned, and given. A good dominant knows that, and respects their sub because it’s our choice to give, and we can take it back any time. It’s a _gift_ Tony. You don’t let Pepper smack your ass for you because she makes you do it. You do it because it’s what you want, and because you trust her enough to submit to her. That’s huge, dude. And I’m betting SHE understands that, even if you don’t.”

“Huh,” grunts Tony, looking thoughtful.

“Phil knows perfectly well that if I ever decide to, I could probably take him down in my sleep. That’s part of the rush of it, for both of us. He knows I could, so it makes what I give him even more of a gift. And I love knowing that he makes me feel so great that I want to submit to him. It’s the greatest gift I could give, Tony. I make myself vulnerable to him because I trust him. I trust BOTH of them with my heart, and we don’t care if people think it’s fucked up. Maybe it is. It works for us, so people can fuck off. Do you honestly think Pepper believes she’s making you do anything against your will because you have no other choice? Shit, dude, it has to be terrifying for her sometimes, knowing that if she pushes you too far, you could lash out in response and really, really hurt her. She doesn’t have the assurance that Phil has. Phil knows this is exactly what I want. Pepper knows you’re conflicted as shit over it.  Stop being an asshole. She’s giving you what you want, dumbass. Nobody thinks less of you for it. The only thing that makes anybody think less of you is when you hurt her feelings because you don’t know your own.”

“Huh,” says Tony again, thoughtfully. This is the most tongue-tied Clint’s ever seen him. “I still think it’s kind of humiliating, knowing that everyone….well, the team anyway…knows.”

Clint sighs, notices two familiar shapes passing in front of the open balcony door.

“Bruce! Steve! Come out here for a sec, wouldya?”

Tony’s eyes widen in panic and he tries to close the sliding glass door. Steve stops him easily, and pushes it back open, stepping through with Bruce on his heels.

“What’s wrong, Clint?” asks the tall, obscenely muscular blond man.

“It’s Tony,” Clint offers in explanation, which, unsurprisingly, actually seems to clear things up and erases the worried look on Steve’s face.

“What has he done now?” asks Bruce. “Tony, what have you done now?”

“Hey!” protests Tony, incensed. “Why does everybody automatically assume I’ve done something?”

“Because you usually have?” says Steve.

“I liked you better as a capsicle,” grumps the billionaire.

“He’s being an idiot,” says Clint helpfully. This announcement is met with blank stares, from which Clint deduces that Tony is ALWAYS being an idiot, so what else is new? “Okay,” Clint corrects himself. “More than usual.”

“I want all three of you out of my house by midnight. Find your own mansions. You suck,” announces Tony loftily.

“This isn’t your house, Tony,” Bruce points out helpfully. He pats Tony on the shoulder. “You can go buy Finland later if it makes you feel better.”

“What has he done this time?” persists Steve, who is never easily to distract from whatever the subject at hand is supposed to be (but almost always evolves into a total clusterfuck when more than two Avengers are involved).

“Ok, so I need you guys to tell me something, and really….be honest, okay?” Clint looks from Steve to Bruce and back again. They agree, looking puzzled.

“No,” says Tony. “Really. Go back to the party. This was a huge mistake. Barton, I’m never speaking to you again.” He tries to leave, but Steve grabs him by the arm, and shaking him off is a little like trying to get middle class soccer moms out of Wal-Mart on Black Friday when the new playstation has just come out and is on sale and they have 7 units left.

“He wants to know if subbing for Pepper makes him weak.”

“No I don’t!” yells Tony, furious. “Go away! I’m never speaking to any of you again!”

Steve sends him a withering glare. Bruce laughs, which is nice, because Clint doesn’t think he does enough of it.

“Tony,” says Bruce fondly. “You really can be a moron, you know that? Of course we don’t think it makes you weak. You’re a lot more fun to be around since you and Pepper….expanded your relationship to include….various alternative choices. Everybody can see it makes you happier than you’ve ever been. If anything, we all think more of you for it, because now that you’re getting those needs met, we’re more confident that we can depend on you. Before, it was sometimes a tossup whether you’d be there when we needed you or drowning your insecurities at the bottom of a bottle of scotch.”

Steve looks mortally embarrassed, but manages to respond anyway.

“Bruce is right, Stark,” he says, carefully not making eye contact. “Besides, why should we care what sort of…things….um, work for you? In the….um….bedroom? Pepper makes you happy. We’re glad. Don’t screw it up, okay?”

Tony looks from one man to the other, a little bit astonished at their reactions.

“See?” says Clint smugly. He thanks Steve and Bruce and sort of shoos them back to the party, then turns to look at Tony again. It’s very weird, finding himself the kink advisor to a group of people as vivid, as larger than life as the people he’s to be sharing this mansion with, but it’s sort of shaping up to be that way. Teaching Thor to use the internet to order toys for his very own toybag, convincing Jane not to let her insecurity get in the way of what she wants….Tony now apparently has the same problem, although Clint suspects his issues are a bit more of a roadblack than Jane’s had been. Still…

“Look,” he continues, since Tony’s frowning down at his empty glass and showing no signs of a response, “Just because you want some things sexually that aren’t exactly part of the mainstream doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. If more people could be honest with themselves, there’d probably be a lot more leather shops in malls than there are now. People probably don’t even realize that if they like to be tied to the bedpost with silk stockings, or have their hair pulled, or like to bite a little, that it’s BDSM in its own way. Americans are horrible about sublimating their baser urges, because we’re taught that those things are wrong, are sick. Says who? That’s a question, man. Says who?”

“How the hell should I know? It’s just… a thing you know.”

“Jesus, that’s the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard. Everybody keeps feeling sorry for me cause I grew up without parents and a home in the suburbs and a dog. I’m starting to think maybe I was lucky, and it’s the rest of you slobs who deserve the sympathy. The only thing that was ever wrong in anybody’s eyes in the circus was when it was against someone’s will. Nobody tolerated that sort of thing. One of the acrobats was raped by a new roustabout when I was still pretty young. The guy disappeared. Left all his stuff behind. Nobody even asked about him, they just kind of smiled and nodded, and divvied out his stuff, and we went on. At twelve, I guess I thought they’d just run him off or something. Now I’m pretty sure they did something a lot more permanent to make sure he never hurt another girl again. I saw stuff…. Well, and DID stuff too….that would probably curl…” he looks at Tony and rethinks the comparison…. “Steve’s hair. But what you liked, what you wanted and got off on, was just okay, as long as it was also okay with everybody involved. You name it, and I was probably exposed to it before I even really hit puberty. Bondage, S&M, roleplaying, polyamory, fetishes of all kinds… we had a guy who liked rubber. And I mean REALLY liked rubber. He had a rubber suit…and I don’t mean skin-tight latex…it was like an old chemical suit or some shit, covered him from neck to toes, and he wore a rubber hood and a gas mask with it. Not to bed with anybody or anything, just cause he liked it. He was a great guy, and everybody liked him. Nobody gave a shit that he looked crazy as a loon schlepping around in that thing, squeaking like a horde of baby ducks every step he took. We just liked him.”

“You’re not making this up to make me feel better,” says Tony. It’s a statement, not a question, so Clint doesn’t respond. “That actually happened.”

“Just about every night for seven years. I assume he’s still doing it. Tony, the only person who can make you think you’re weak is you. Want what you want, man. Screw what anybody thinks. I mean damn, you own half the world, don’t you think that puts you in a pretty good position to tell everybody to fuck off? A lot of people like a little bit of pain with their sex. That’s why grudge fucks and angry sex in movies excite us. So you throw away your stupid white bread ideas about what a man’s supposed to be…and come on, what’s the example you’re using? Your dad? Like he was such a great parent so you should totally pattern your life after him?...Anyway, take them and spit on them, Stark. You have someone who makes you happy. Really Tony…just be happy.”

“You know what, Katniss?” says Tony, straightening up and turning back towards the open doorway. Clint can see Pepper through the opening, talking to Jane and Natasha. They’re laughing at something. Tony’s gaze is drawn to Pepper’s lovely and animated face like she is all he can see. Clint smiles. “You’re absolutely right,” Stark finishes. “And….you know, thanks.”

“Any time,” murmurs Clint, but Tony is already back inside, striding over to Pepper. She turns to him as he approaches, her smile widening when she sees him. Tony slides his arm around her waist and leans down to kiss her lightly, pausing to whisper something in her ear. Whatever it is, it has her smile turning from sweet to wicked, and Clint notices her hand slide from Tony’s waist where she is hugging him. It skims down his hip to his ass, and Tony flinches, just a little. But he’s smiling. Clint decides it’s time to rejoin his party, and follows Tony to where the three women and the billionaire are standing. He stops behind Natasha, his hands sliding around her hips from behind to pull her snug up against the front of his body. She glances back over her shoulder at his face, and her lips curve in a filthy little smile. She does a little hip shimmy that makes her ass rub against his crotch. Within seconds, he feels his dick start to harden. He leans his face down close to hers so he can whisper in her ear.

“How long is this party supposed to last?” he whispers, nipping sharply at her ear as he does so. “Because Tasha…ohhh Tasha, the things I want to do to you…”

“Yeah?” she whispers back.

“Mm,” he breathes, the tip of his tongue teasing the soft skin just behind her ear. “Need to take you, Tash. Need to be inside you, so hard it hurts, makes you scream for me. Need to taste you, hold you down and lick and suck your clit til you come and come for me. Til you think you’re done, baby, til you beg me to stop. But I won’t. I’ll make you come one more time, because you know I can, know I can force pleasure through your body whether you think you’re ready or not.” She shudders as he whispers to her what he plans to do, and he can see her pulse jumping in the vein in her throat.

“Ok,” she says suddenly, and very loudly. “Party’s over. Everybody get out!”

For a second a few people laugh at this, but when they look at Tasha’s face, nobody seems to want to question her. He’s still standing behind her, which is good because her body’s blocking his massive erection from the rest of the room, but he knows the look she has on her face. Only people who know her really, really well can tell this look from the one she gets when she’s killing people. And nobody but him (and possibly Phil) knows her well enough. It’s surprising how fast that expression can clear a room. In three minutes, everyone is gone, amid calls of welcome home and we missed you and see you tomorrow. And they are alone. He’s been so overwhelmed by having a party thrown in his honor that it’s only now he can look around and see the place they’ve given him as his home. It’s immediately apparent that someone who knows him has had a hand in decorating the place. It’s all clean lines and lacking in fuss. The couch and chairs in the living room are a very dark wood with deep blue cushions. A very minimal number of throw pillows scattered across them are violet and dark red. The art on the walls is almost all reminiscent of the sky, and flight. The Hawk print Thor bought him in Gatlinburg hangs above the television. A rug on the floor pulls all three upholstery colors together. There’s a huge print on another wall that is a copy of a piece a local artist had delivered to Stark tower a couple of weeks after the Chitauri were defeated. It is a painting so detailed that it looks like a photograph at first, of part of the New York skyline, with the Empire State Building at its center. The sky behind the skyline is of dawn, a deep blue sky just tinged with rose and gold. They are there, all six of them. Iron Man and Thor fly high above the city. The Hulk clings to the side of a building, while the Black Widow stands defiantly on the observation deck of the Empire State building. Above her, at the very highest point, Hawkeye clings to the antennae of the structure with his legs, his bow drawn, ready for action. He loves this picture. He wonders if all of them have a copy of it hanging in their rooms. There’s a smaller room connected to this one. In the center are stands holding his armor, the suit he wears most of the time, and the heavier one he only dons when they’re expecting serious mayhem. The walls contain his bows. He mostly carries his favorite, the one Phil had created for him by his R&D department, but he has dozens. Some are simply prototypes, others are specialty bows designed for very specific jobs. Smaller ones for a quicker draw in close quarters, longer ones for distance shots, ones with a wider arrow rest for his heavier arrows, the ones with explosives and such in them, bows with all sorts of variances of pull tension. He doesn’t have any below 80 pounds, and his preferred bows are all over hundred pounds. He’s heard somewhere that the unofficial heaviest draw weight is something around 200 pounds. Maybe that’s true, maybe not. That’s for one pull. He can pull a 150 pound draw weight all day long and only feel a little tired. He doesn’t often think of the improbability of this, it’s just what he is. But looking over the bows, the elegance of them, the aesthetics of their graceful curves, cataloguing in his mind what each one can do, he sort of realizes that Phil’s right. He’s human, yeah…but it’s got to be a little more than that. He doesn’t like to think about it, but he supposes in the end it doesn’t really matter where his abilities came from. They’re brought him here, and here is a pretty good place to be.

The bedroom makes him laugh at the same time that it reminds him of the hard on he’s sporting. The bed is plenty big enough for two, and has a head- and footboard just as sturdy as Phil’s. There are already holes drilled in all four corners that have heavy o-rings screwed into them and bolted in place. There are drawers in the base of the bed. He’s pretty sure he knows what they’re for, and how convenient to keep all your sick toys so close at hand. The bedspread is a rich, dark velvety purple color, almost the color of grape juice, so dark it’s nearly black. The bedframe, bedside tables and dresser are black, and the walls hold black and white photographs of the vistas, wildlife and people of the Smoky Mountains. On the dresser sits the framed photo of he and Tasha and Jane and Thor they had made in Gatlinburg. He looks at Tasha.

“Did you do this?”

She shrugs. “A little. Jane helped. I’m not very good at picking paint and fabric and shit, but I knew you’d want the pictures, and the hardware.” She grins a little. “Ready to try this thing out?” She sits on the side of the bed, leaning back a little and stroking her hands over the bedspread. He really loves this room.

“We’re not waiting long enough to pull out the restraints,” he promises her, his voice rough and raw with the hunger he feels for her.

“Fine by me,” she replies, and slowly starts unbuttoning her shirt.

“Stop,” he snarls, and is gratified when she does. “Put your hands by your sides. I want to do that.”

“Okay,” she says, a little breathlessly.

He takes his time, slowly uncovering her pale, perfect skin. She has nearly as many scars as he, but she is perfect to him anyway. Or perhaps because of them. He kisses what he uncovers, or strokes with his tongue, or nips sharply with his teeth, making her gasp and flinch and curse at him softly. When she is naked, he shoves her backwards onto the bed, and watches her from brooding eyes as he strips off his shirt, toes off his shoes and thumbs open the top button of his jeans. He leaves them on, because he knows she thinks he’s insanely hot this way. He uses every ounce of speed and agility he has to pounce and come down on top of her, framing and trapping her body between his hands and knees.

“Put your hands above your head,” he hisses, and she obeys him. He gathers her wrists in one hand and pins them to the bed, rolling to his side to lie along the length of her body. He doesn’t move, just holds her hands down and looks at her, naked and flushed and breathing hard. Her nipples are drawn tight and hard atop her unbelievably perfect breasts. The muscles in her belly and thighs quiver just a little bit, and she’s squeezing her thighs together and her body squirms just a little, impatiently. “So perfect, Tash. You’re perfect.”

“Touch me,” she gasps. “Clint. I want to feel your hands on me.”

“Mm,” he muses, his free hand coming up to trickle along her skin so softly it raises goosebumps on her flesh and makes her whine a little. “How do want me, Tash?” he whispers as his fingers dip between her thighs, which she parts to let him in, one finger unerringly finding her swollen clit and rubbing gently. She cries out softly and arches her hips towards him. “Should it be long and slow and sweet? Should I fuck you deep but drag it out, make sure we’re both dying for it when we finally get to come? Should it be gentle, Tash…or fucking rough?” On the last question he shoves two fingers into her sopping pussy as hard as he can, and she throws her head back and cries out in Russian. She looks at him then, her blue eyes wide and blind and almost black, and she snarls at him, pulling against his hold on her wrists, making him tighten his grip on them.

“Fu….fucking. Rough,” she gasps. He grins at her, a flash of teeth that has nothing of tenderness in it. He pulls his fingers out of her and shoves her legs open by the very expedient method of forcing them with his knees and he rolls to place himself there, his free hand tearing his fly open the rest of the way. He thinks he hears one of the button holes rip, and doesn’t care. He shoves his jeans impatiently down his hips, sighing when his aching dick is freed from its constraint. He lets go of her hands to grab hold of her thighs, forcing them wider and pulling her towards him at the same time, shoving his cock into her brutally. She catches her breath and makes a needy sound, almost a whimper, when their bodies come together with a thick slapping sound. He just stays there for a few seconds, fingers digging bruises into her legs, head down, panting, gritting his teeth against the desire to mark her as his, to hurt her, to lose himself in her. One of her freed hands strokes softly over his face and down his throat.

“Clint,” she whispers. “Any way you want.” He looks up at her then, knows there is no sanity in his eyes, only mindless need.

“You sure?” he asks through his teeth.

“ _Da,”_ she replies. “ _Moya lyubov. Ya uveren.”_ (Yes. My love. I’m sure.)

 Fuck. Jesus, fuck. She’s perfect. Just…Goddamn, he can’t even think straight. She’s so tight, so warm and wet clenching tight around his cock. Can’t do anything but fucking _take_ her, pound himself into her body like a mindless thing. The sound of their bodies colliding is obscene, the slap of flesh on flesh and the sounds of their ragged breathing, his grunts as he powers into her welcoming cunt…it’s all deliriously fantastic. She rises up, her hands gripping his shoulders, her sharp little fingernails raking down his flesh, wrenching inhuman snarls from his chest as she tears at him, wrapping his arms around her to keep her pulled close, one hand in her hair, fisting tight and yanking her head back so he can get his mouth on her throat, his teeth scraping and then biting down, making her hiss and drive her nails deeper into him. They savage each other, unable to touch and tear at once another’s flesh enough to satisfy them. She shrieks when she comes, her pussy gripping his cock tight, and dragging him right after her, thrusting as deep as he can into her shaking body, shouting hoarsely between his teeth where they are buried in her flesh. They’re both trembling with exhaustion when they collapse on the bed, panting, gasping, bloody in a couple of places, bruised and sated and grinning at each other like fools.

“Hi,” he whispers, capturing her mouth in a kiss that is as tender as their joining has been brutal.

“Welcome home,” she whispers back, her lips curving into a smile on his, and then they’re both laughing, howling with great ridiculous whoops of laughter until they can’t breathe, and he has no idea why, except that he feels so glad inside to know that things are just the same between them, that she still loves him being rough with her, that she hasn’t started to see him only as a sub she likes to boss around, that they are okay. He extricates himself a little from her, flopping back onto the bed with a sigh that quickly turns into a hiss as his back meets the mattress.

“Jesus fuck, Tash. Feels like you fuckin’ skinned me,” he groans.

“Good,” she replies smugly. “Because it feels like you fucked me with a jackhammer.”

“I saw this video once where someone attached a dildo to a reciprocating saw,” he offers, with no idea why this memory pops into his mind.

“You’re a very disturbed man, Barton,” she says comfortably, laying her head on his chest.

“You love it,” he assures her as his arm goes around her.

“Yeah. But you can keep your fucking power tools to yourself.”

“You never let me have any fun,” he grumps, and flinches when she pokes him hard in the ribs. “Bitch.”

“I could start being nice all the time,” she threatens.

“That’s not funny!”

“Yes dear,” she replies in a sweet voice.

“Give me ten minutes,” he growls, “and I will make you very sorry you said that.”

“Promises, promises,” she teases, and he wraps both arms around her, rolling until she’s face down on the bed.

“Make that ten seconds,” he mutters, pulling back and bringing the palm of his hand down on her ass with a resounding smack.

“Don’t stop,” she gasps.

“Never,” he promises. Yeah, it’s good to be home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so this section is intended to lead up to and be about Clint fulfilling one of Phil's fantasies as he promised in the last chapter. Here's my problem. I don't know what Phil's fantasy is!
> 
> So... I'm putting it to you who are reading this. If you have an idea about what Phil would connsider one of his big fantasies that isn't already being fulfilled, PLEASE message me your suggestions! I hate writer's block. Ok, this isn't really writer's block, because I'm not having trouble writing, I'm just stumped on what Phil would like to do with, to, or have done to him by Clint. 
> 
> If I choose your suggestion, and if you wish, I will write a one-off about any Marvel pairing you want. It's easier for me to write Avengers pairings, but I can handle pretty much any Marvel hero you'd like to read about. I will do this even if I don't ship the pairing, but be warned that if it's just horribly outside my confort zone, I'll ask you for another choice. Basically this means I won't write a pairing that contains underage sex (unless both partners are minors), or incest fics (and I am sorry if you love Thorki porn, but my Thor honestly views Loki as his brother), and I'd probably have trouble wit a fic between mortal enemies, but if I can think of a way to make that one work, I'll try it. I've got people bitching at me (Yes Harry, this means you!) to post the next part. Help!


	15. Part 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil finally arrives and abruptly realizes he does know what fantasy he wants to roleplay after all. Please be aware that the break between their negotiation and the beginning of the operation described herein is important. See end notes for an explanation of what I've done here and how I came upon this part.

The newly renovated Avengers mansion is amazing. Everything is state of the art while remaining unobtrusive so that the place feels a lot more like a home than any SHIELD base or the Stark Tower. Everybody has rooms here, and it surprises Clint a little that Tony actually stays here fairly often.

“Well hell, Legolas,” says Tony by way of explanation when Clint asks, “If I don’t keep all of you where I can watch you, you’re likely to break all the toys I keep making for you. Or each other. Or both.”

Since more than half the time the remote danger of anybody breaking anybody else involves Tony as one of the antagonists, Clint decides it’s too lonely in Stark Tower. Tony does fly back and forth to his place in Malibu more often now, but he’s here more often than not. He can always tell when Tony’s in residence by Pepper’s presence. The fact that she seems a little smug most of the time tells him Tony’s at least mostly managing not to be a moron about things lately. He finds that he’s absurdly proud of this, and knows he’d risk torture before he admitted it, because shit, how cheesy is he?

Though he talks to Phil daily, Clint’s not sure when he’ll be arriving from Frisco, because Phil himself isn’t sure when he’ll have things sufficiently squared away enough that he feels comfortable leaving. About a week is all he knows, and though it makes him a little antsy with the uncertainty and waiting, he’s not letting it fuck up his head this time. He does try to keep busy, which isn’t hard when you live in a house big enough for a small army that boasts an indoor pool, gym, shooting range, holographic simulator, professional chef, lab, theater, game room and armory, not to mention a motor pool that’d make Jay Leno envious. He gets to field test his clearance to return to duty pretty quick too, when they’re mobilized to Japan to take on an enormous dinosaur. He thinks it’s a joke when they get the call because really? Godzilla? It turns out to be true though, and the new arrows work really well, to his delight. In the end when they defeat the thing and it vanishes, they figure out it’s a manifestation created by a kid who can make dreams real and who unfortunately mostly has nightmares because the ability he can’t control scares the shit out of him. It’s Bruce who manages to put the boy at ease when they track him down. He tells the kid that he’s really scared of what he can do too, and that the way to stop being scared is to do your best to understand what’s happening to you and to ask people to help you, and that’s why they’re all here. He asks the kid if he’ll let them help him, and the boy says he will, so they pluck him out of the asylum where he’s being imprisoned (they are probably a little more destructive in doing so than is strictly necessary, but the little boy’s tied to his bed when they find him) and take him back to New York with them.

They have several days of downtime then, and Thor approaches him in the gym one afternoon, looking oddly discomfited.

“Hey Thor,” grunts Clint, who doing reps on the bench press. “What’s up?”

“I…have a request, my friend.”

“Sure, what do you need?”

“I need you to teach me to dance,” admits the demigod, blushing a little. The request startles the archer and he loses his grip on the bar. Thor’s reflexes are the only thing that saves him from having his ribcage caved in, because Clint’s pressing 250.

“Thanks,” he says a little breathlessly, sitting up and grabbing the towel hanging on the bar over his shoulder to wipe the sweat off his face. “Dancing, huh?”

“Jane wishes to dance with me. I would grant her this wish, but I am aware that it is not a skill I possess.”

“They don’t dance on Asgard?” asks Clint curiously.

“Not in the manner she expects, I believe,” says Thor, frowning a little. “Seasonal festivals feature dances of sorts, but it is not the same as what I have observed here. I looked up various styles on the internet, and I admit I am a bit overwhelmed by the sheer variety. I am more confused than the day she expressed an interest in this activity, for I am afraid I am completely unsure if she wishes to dance ballet or the tap dance or ballroom or waltz or….”

“Hey, whoa, hold up there,” says Clint, “I think I can clear that much up at least. You can cross ballet and tap right off the list. I’m pretty sure Jane doesn’t know how to ballroom dance, though she may very well know how to waltz. A lot of people do. We just need to figure out what kind of music she means.”

“I do not know the answer to that,” says Thor.

“Ok, no problem,” says Clint, fetching his cell phone from the bench next to his. He fires off a text to Jane.

_What kind of music, Doc?_

**_What?_ **

_Just go with it, Jane, don’t make me spoil the surprise._

**_OMG_ **

_Not really any way for me to keep this under wraps then, is there?_

**_He’s asked you to teach him to dance!_ **

_Yeah, so pretend to be surprised, kay?_

**_I will. Um…romantic stuff I guess. And do you remember that movie from the 80’s, it had Patrick Swayze in it?_ **

_Jesus fucking Christ, Jane, you are going to owe me for the rest of your life for making me teach Thor how to dirty dance!_

**_You don’t have to, Clint, really._ **

_Oh shut up, you know I’m going to._

**_I love you!_ **

_You better!_

He looks up at Thor and his mouth quirks a little. This is going to be interesting.

“Ok man, give me half an hour to get showered and change, and meet me in the game room, there’s a dance floor there and a good sound system.”

“Thank you, my friend, I will be there.”

Clint jogs back to his rooms and showers quickly, feeling bemused and a little awkward about what he’s getting ready to do. It’s not that he feels weird about touching Thor, because neither of them is very body conscious, and he’s watched the guy fuck Jane blind in a Jacuzzi anyway. It’s just that, despite the fact that he’s rather energetically getting laid by a man on a semi-regular basis, Clint doesn’t think of himself as gay, or even as bisexual. It’s not that he has a problem with the idea, it’s just that he never thinks about it that way. He loves Natasha, and he loves Phil. Their sex doesn’t really matter so much as who they are. He’s flirted with men in the line of duty, but it was just the job and he’d never given it a thought. All of a sudden he’s faced with putting his hands on another man, an astonishingly attractive one at that, and he has no idea if he’s supposed to enjoy it or feel weird about it or wait to get Phil’s permission or what. He finally tells himself to stop second guessing everything as he pulls a shirt on and heads out the door.

Thor’s already there, standing in the exact center of the parquet dance floor looking really uncomfortable. He grins and decides what the hell, he’s just going to enjoy himself and do his best to help his friend. He doesn’t have to want to fuck Thor to appreciate that the man’s body is a work of fucking art. You can appreciate art without wanting to take it to bed. He goes to the stereo and programs some stuff into it, then turns to his embarrassed pupil and laughs a little.

“Dude, you look like you think I’m gonna bite or something.”

Thor looks at him out of the corners of his eyes and cocks one eyebrow at him.

“You do bite, Clint. I have seen it.”

“Oh. Um, yeah. Okay, bad example. Or…the point is, I’m not going to bite YOU.”

“I should not think so,” says Thor, then he sighs. “I apologize, my friend. It is just that I find myself unsure of how to handle this situation. I know many things are very different on Midgard from what I know. I have become aware through my studies that most people here are not easy about relationships between men. I merely do not want you to be uncomfortable, as I’m aware we will probably have to… touch each other….to accomplish this quest.”

Clint bites the inside of his lip hard to keep from laughing. It totally figures that Thor would view learning to dance as a quest. Somehow though, it makes the whole thing okay that Thor’s awkward about it too, and not wanting to offend him or freak him out.

“Thor,” he says, smiling, “We’re friends, yeah?”

“Of course.”

“You do realize I’m actually fucking another man, right?”

“Yes,” says Thor warily, clearly wondering what Clint’s point is.

“I’m pretty sure that means I’m okay with the stuff men do together. I’m also pretty sure I know it doesn’t mean you’re coming onto me or I’m coming onto you if we have to touch each other so you can dance with Jane. Seriously, I think most of your Asgardian customs beat ours hands down. That sex can be a thing of comfort between friends, whatever sex they happen to be, just because they need to be touched? That’s awesome. I think you’re attractive, and it won’t suck to touch you. I’m not….attracted to you though…does that make sense?”

“Indeed,” says Thor, sounding relieved. “There is no shame in appreciation of another’s beauty, for any reason. I think you are….attractive too. And yet I do not wish to…fuck you, as you are so fond of saying.”

This time Clint fails entirely in trying not to laugh.

“Oh geez, Thor. I’m really, really glad. I’ve seen you…um….well, you and Jane, you know? Pretty sure you’d break me, and I don’t think Phil would be pleased.”

Thor laughs too, because he’s pretty much past being offended when people laugh at stuff he says, now that he’s realized not all of them are laughing AT him.

“It is true that the female anatomy is better suited to accommodating my….girth,” he says solemnly, and they’re laughing again.

“Okay,” says Clint finally. “So….may I have this dance?”

“Certainly,” says Thor graciously.

It turns out to be a little more complicated than Clint’s anticipated. It’s next to impossible for him to lead, because Thor’s like nine feet tall. Not really, but it kind of feels that way sometimes, and Clint’s too short to manage it effectively. And trying to give him directions on leading while Clint follows just confuses both of them. He’s chewing on his thumb and frowning when inspiration hits. He goes over to the projector and scrolls through its menu, cueing a movie and selecting the scene he wants.

“Watch this,” he instructs Thor, and turns it on. The first of the many dance scenes from _Dirty Dancing_ comes on the ten foot screen. Thor watches with great interest. Clint’s seen the movie plenty of times, she he watches Thor, and sees the moment realization hits.

“The point of this dance is to move your body as though you are…”

“Like you’re fucking,” says Clint helpfully. “And from what I hear, you’ve got that down pat.” Thor nods and asks him to play more. He skips most of the boring parts and cues all the dance scenes for Thor to watch. Once it’s done, they try again.

“Is this….all right?” asks Thor, still a little hesitant, as he faces Clint and puts his hands on the shorter man’s waist.

“No,” says Clint, and chuckles a little when Thor looks mortified. He takes both of the God of Thunder’s large hands in his own and pushes them down until they rest on his hips. He places the palm of his right hand on Thor’s chest and his left hand slides around the taller man’s neck. “You’re gonna have to mean it, dude.”

He cues the music back on, and Thor looks at him, amusement evident on his face, his bright blue eyes sparkling and his mouth spreading into a grin that’s entirely too lascivious to be at all appropriate. That Thor has this capacity for outrageousness is a little surprising, but Clint can clearly see it on the other man’s face when he decides to go for this all out and screw what the neighbors would think. So to speak.

It only takes about 30 seconds of dirty dancing with Thor for Clint to decide Jane is a very lucky woman. It continues to baffle him that Tony pokes at Thor for being big and clumsy, when in reality the only truth in his jibe is that Thor is, indeed, big. He is also graceful, and has impressive control over his body, and is really disconcertingly flexible. There’s a light of challenge in the demigod’s eyes as he looks down into Clint’s face and rotates his pelvis against Clint’s body like his spine is made of silly string. Of course, Thor should probably know better than to challenge Clint, who has never walked away from a dare. It rapidly devolves into a competition between them, each trying to out-squick the other. It’s at the moment Thor yanks Clint’s knee up alongside his hip and dips him, and Clint lets himself arch backwards, that the door opens and Clint watches upside down as Phil steps into the room. Thor hauls him upright and lets go. He turns around to where Phil stands in the doorway, staring at them. His face is unreadable, his eyes dark. Clint notices that his fists are clenched, and feel a stab of fear that Phil has misconstrued what he’s just seen. He doesn’t know what to say, feels frozen to the spot where he stands, unable to formulate a sentence that doesn’t sound like he’s making flimsy excuses.

“Thor,” says Phil cordially.

“It is good to see you again, Coul’s son,” says Thor, nodding his head so that it looks a little like he’s bowing to him.

“You as well. Would you mind excusing us please?” says Phil softly, never taking his eyes off Clint, who feels the beginning of terror choking him.

“Certainly,” says Thor, oblivious to Clint’s turmoil. “Thank you for your help, Clint. I will see you later.” He leaves the room, Phil stepping aside to let him out, then closing the door behind him. He starts to walk towards Clint, while the archer casts about frantically in his head for a way to make Phil believe that what he saw really was completely innocent. Because it had been.

“Sir,” he whispers as Phil bears down on him.

“Shut up,” mutters Phil, reaching the place where Clint stands rooted and frightened. His hand comes up, grabs as fistful of t-shirt and _shoves._ Clint staggers backwards and Phil follows, using the weight of his body to slam Clint hard into the nearest wall, knocking the breath out of him.

“Please Sir,” cries the archer, desperate for a chance to explain what his Master has seen, yet also aware that Coulson has just opened the door to find his property plastered against another man in an extremely sexual position.

“I said,” Phil growls softly, “Shut. Up.” And his mouth covers Clint’s and his tongue sweeps in to take possession of his mouth, his teeth nipping sharply at the younger man’s bottom lip. Clint makes a muffled sound of confusion against Phil’s mouth. This…isn’t exactly the behavior of an angry man. After a few seconds during which Clint wonders desperately if he’s supposed to be enjoying this or not, Phil pulls back a little, panting, tugging Clint’s shirt up so he can put his hands on warm skin, making Clint whimper a little, especially when he stops this to unbutton Clint’s jeans.

“I know what I want,” hisses Phil, his hand burrowing into Clint’s pants to grasp him, humming softly when he finds Clint already hard for him.

“Hungh?” gasps Clint.

“Do you remember Rio?” Phil asks, his eyes very bright and very blue as he stares into Clint’s.

“Yes?” Clint’s not sure what it is he’s supposed to remember exactly, although he remembers most of the details of every one of his missions, even the ones he ran for Loki, though he tries not to think about those.

“You were sent undercover into a nightclub to meet a contact there and scope out your mark.”

Ohhhh. Clint recalls that night vividly. He’d been really relieved he hadn’t had to do more than flirt and dance a little, as both contact and mark had been male in this case. Thinking back on it, he recalls the very strange look on Phil’s face when he’d returned to their safehouse to report. Now that he does, he recognizes it in a way he wouldn’t have been able to back then, because he hadn’t been aware of how Phil felt about him. It’s the look Phil gets when he wants Clint too badly to wait one second more, the one that lets Clint know with a shivery feeling that he’s going to be hurting once they’re done.

“Phil,” he breathes.

“Every time,” says Phil, leaning forward to press his forehead against Clint’s the way he does so often, the way Clint has come to depend on. “Every time you went under cover it was for the same thing.”

“Not….every time,” says Clint.

“Don’t you know why I sent you? The only times I took you off the roofs and put you in the field were the times I needed you to seduce information out of someone, or distract them. Clint, I knew you didn’t care for undercover work, but you were so fucking GOOD at it. You don’t know, little boy, you never realized how hard it was for anyone to resist you, how hot you are, how easily you’d flirt and tease and sometimes even…”

“Take one for the team?” Clint suggests. It had only been women, because Phil had known he wasn’t gay, but there had been a few times that the most expedient way to get what he needed was to sleep with someone.

“Take one for the….Jesus, Clint. I listened to it all. Every one, every time. Watched you, sometimes, when we had surveillance cams in place beforehand. You don’t know….you _can’t_ know what  it was like, watching you with all those people, even when nothing terribly filthy happened… and I wanted so badly to tell you, to shove you against a wall when you’d stroll back into our room after doing…whatever, whoever…I’d sent you to do…to show you that you belonged to me, to wipe the scent of some stranger off your body with my own. It was…it was hell.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you tonight, Master,” whispers Clint, because Phil seems really worked up, and he’s afraid he’s stirred up some painful memories for Coulson.

“What?” says Phil, frowning. Then his eyes clear. “No. Oh…no, I’m not upset.” He laughs. “In case my hand on your cock isn’t a hint.”

“I…ah….did wonder about that,” gasps Clint when Phil squeezes.

“When I walked in the door and saw you like that, I remembered all those times, how _angry_ I felt watching someone else put their hands on you, but also how fucking hot it made me. And then I realized that this is what I want. When you said next you wanted to do one of my fantasies…”

“Ohh!” says Clint, realizing where Phil’s heading with this, or at least he thinks he’s in the general vicinity.

“Show me your new home,” says Phil, dragging his hand out of Clint’s pants. Clint whimpers a little at the withdrawal, and only refastens the top button. They make it to the top floor and through his door in record time. The new bed with its bolted-on o rings is indeed quite sturdy.

 

Thus it is that the process of mapping out how this scenario will work begins anew, only this time it is Clint who worries about making sure he really understands what Phil wants and why. Some of the things Phil wants horrify Clint, because they’re things he wouldn’t do now if his life depended on it. Probably. Or at least he’d have to think about it really hard. Defiance. Disrespect. Disobedience. He nearly draws the line when Phil tells him that he wants him to _fight_ him. Phil points out that the line isn’t Clint’s to draw. That makes it easier. They go over old mission files, remembering. He pauses over the Bucharest op, remembers to ask Phil if that was one of the times he’d wanted to spank him.

“Oh God,” laughs Phil. “You have no idea. You were horrible. I wanted to yank those dress pants you were bitching about down and whip your bare ass raw with the belt you insisted you hated and wouldn’t wear until you were ready to dress like a fucking clown if I wanted you to, just to make it stop. Right there in front of everybody in that shop.”

“Would you have? If we’d known then …what we know now?”

“You’re damn right I would,” says Phil, and Clint adds a note to the end of the five page list they’ve created together over the last couple of days, with a question mark beside it. Phil takes the pen from his hand and crosses out the question mark.

 

 

Clint stands a little impatiently with his head cocked to the side, in a pair of snug leather pants and no shirt, while Phil inserts his earbud. The handler’s always meticulous about it, and Clint always puts up with it with thinly veiled irritation.

“It’s fine, Sir. I’ve never had one fall out or get seen. C’mon, this is boring.”

“You’ve never had one fall out or get seen because I do this every time. Be quiet and stop fidgeting.”

“You’re a bully, Sir, do you know that?”

Coulson smiles grimly as he repositions the tiny mic for about the seventeenth time.

“You only think that because you refuse to listen to me half the time. People who obey orders don’t think I’m a bully.”

“Yes they do,” mutters Clint darkly. “They just don’t say it to your face. And anyway, I do too follow orders. Well, your orders. Well….when they make sense.”

“Mm,” agrees Phil absently, stepping back to make sure his concealment job on the mic is acceptable.

“If you spit on your hand and use it to make my hair do whatever it is you want it to do, I’m leaving,” says Hawkeye mutinously. Phil smiles again. It’s only a little bit exasperated.

“Let’s go over the mission one more time,” he says firmly, ignoring Clint when he rolls his eyes and groans theatrically.

“Jesus, Sir. Again?”

“If you can repeat it back to me and not miss a detail, we’ll skip it.”

Clint sighs and looks at the ceiling while he recalls the contents of the portfolio Phil handed him this morning before they went wheels up for Atlanta.

“The mark is known to frequent a local establishment called Mary’s. Location is a known gay bar. Mark is six foot two, 210, brown and brown, distinguishing marks are a five inch scar on right forearm and tribal arm band tattoo with interlocking mercury symbols worked into the design. Mark is known to prefer a certain type, which the asset fits. Asset will dress and accessorize to further emphasize known preferences. Spiked hair, cosmetic enhancement of eyes and lips, fetish-style clothing. Mark is not known to be an active member of fetish scene, simply finds a similar look appealing. Asset will initiate contact, use judgment to attract mark into conversation, physical contact, as befits the situation and the mark’s apparent receptivity. Physical contact acceptable as needed to plant tracker on mark’s person as unobtrusively as possible. Interests are known to be: dancing, techno, cats, Japanese hentai, old Liza Minelli movies, activism, Italian sports cars and Jesus can this guy be any more of a cliché? Anyway. Asset will wait to initiate said contact until receiving go-ahead that backup has piggybacked the establishment’s security cams. Asset will not take personal risks beyond what is acceptable to achieve mission goals. You put that one in yourself, Sir?”

“I do know you, after all,” says Phil bemusedly.

“Hey,” protests Hawkeye, “I haven’t had a near death experience in….”

“At least a week?” offers Phil.

The archer thinks about it.

“Yeah, at least.”

“Continue,” says Phil.

“Yes Sir. Okay…um…after successful placement of transmitter, asset will quit the premises and rendezvous with handler at prespecified safe location for debrief. Do I get a gold star, Sir?” he asks, cocksure and smirking.

“What you _should_ get is a really long spanking,” sighs Phil, though he’s smiling in a fond (if frustrated) way at Hawkeye, who is rendered momentarily speechless by this rather incredible statement. He decides it has to be the leather pants he’s wearing and the fishnet shirt he’s about to pull over his head that makes Phil say such an outrageous thing. Does he know? Is it in Clint’s file somewhere that Hawkeye occasionally frequents fetish clubs in foreign locales when he’s not on a mission? If it is, then Coulson’s got to be fucking with him, because no. Coulson’s not….he’s….well he’s just not, that’s all. He decides to just let the outrageous statement slide on past. Well. Mostly. He’s unable to resist the urge to stick his tongue out at Phil. As soon as he’s done so, he wishes he hadn’t, because the expression on his handler’s face is….disturbing? Actually if he’s honest, what’s disturbing about it is that it’s _feral._ Phil looks at him like that in this dream he’s been having lately, one he’d rather die under hideous torture than confess to anyone. Ever. Even Tasha, and she’s his best friend.

“No gold star?” he quips lightly.

“I’m fresh out,” says Phil, and the tense moment has passed. “But you’re right, you’ve got this. Let’s mobilize, shall we? I’d rather this didn’t take all night, if it’s all the same to you.”

Clint ducks into the bathroom and applies black eyeliner with a generous hand, the icy gray-blue of his eyes an almost shimmering contrast to the thick black surrounding them. He saves the black lipstick for the car, because he hates it, and doesn’t want to wear it any longer than he has to. Hopes, in fact, that once it does the trick, he can accidentally wipe most of it off on a cocktail napkin or something. He starts on the jewelry. Some of it actually IS jewelry even. Sliding six rings on various fingers, he catalogues everything mentally. Panic button, plain ring, backup transmitter just in case (on which he won’t be able to hear Phil but on which Phil will be able to hear him if anything should happen to the earbud), two rings with hidden compartments that contain a very strong sleeping pill and another pill that will induce violent nausea within about ten minutes of ingestion, another plain ring, and a silver snake that twines around his left index finger several time and which, when pinched between two fingers where its head meets its tail, becomes a very serviceable length of piano wire. There are tiny lockpicks in one of his leather cuff bracelets, a skinpatch in the other. This is a piece of medical genius, as when it’s slapped onto a wound, it bonds instantly and nearly seamlessly to the skin and has tiny sensors that rapidly match the user’s own skin tone. Though his pants and shirt both look like they were painted on him by a very perverted artist, he still has a number of weapons on him. Concealing knives, darts and shuriken in his clothing and boots is something he’s good at, and he’s sporting five tonight. He steps back and surveys himself in the mirror of their hotel bathroom and smiles a little. He has to admit that he looks like a gay wet dream. Chuckling to himself he steps back out in to the room to see what Phil’s reaction will be. He doesn’t tease his handler about his sexual preference much, but simply can’t resist stepping into the room, waiting for Phil to look up from the file he’s reading (again! Geez!). He runs his hands down his own chest and stomach, over his hips and just barely missing his crotch, doing a slow pirouette and grinning wickedly at Phil.

“What do you think, Sir? Fuckable, or not?”

The flash of heat in Phil’s eyes is gone almost before Clint can even register it, then he is his usual professionally detached self.

“You’re fine,” says the older agent a little stiffly. Hawkeye feels a tiny pang of conscience at this, because he realizes he doesn’t know Phil’s type and for all he knows what he looks like now fits it and he might have just stepped over a line. But Phil’s moving on, tossing him his leather jacket and heading for the door. Clint follows, momentarily abashed. Phil coaches him on the whole drive over, while Clint’s a captive audience, revenge for the tease, probably. Asshole. The archer’s twinge of guilt is completely erased by the time they reach the block of downtown Atlanta where Mary’s resides. Because he’s bored and because Phil’s being a mother hen, he jumps out of the car before it’s even fully come to a stop and heads up the block for Mary’s.

“Agent Barton,” hisses Phil in his ear. “You _will_ await my go-ahead before initiating contact.”

“Yes mom,” mutters Hawkeye, smirking.

Mary’s is loud, crowded, and throbbing with energy. The patrons are mostly men, though Clint notes a few lesbian couples and even a few straights who are obviously there for the spectacle. And it is one, no doubt about that! The dance floor is packed, wall to wall bodies, and for some of them, the only difference between what they’re doing and fucking is that mostly their crotches are covered. Then again, he’s not absolutely sure about a few of the men he sees out there. He’d have to get a lot closer to be sure, and he’s so not going there. He takes a few minutes, orders a drink and sips it absently while he surveys the space, noting all the egresses, emergency exit, back door, windows. He cruises casually to the bathroom and notes the painted-over window there, just big enough to squeeze through if you have to. There’s not even any reason to expect trouble on this little op. The man he’s supposed to tag isn’t known for being violent. He’s being surveilled as a potential contact for an upcoming mission, and though his home and office are bugged, keeping up with the guy in his spare time has been something of a hassle, so Clint’s been drafted to get close enough to plant a bug on him. These new ones are pretty neat. So small they’re hardly visible, a new silicone casing that looks like skin, an adhesive that only comes loose with a solvent some lab nerd or another has invented. As long as Clint gets it somewhere unobtrusive, the poor slob’s probably not even going to notice it. Hawkeye leans back against the bar and looks around the crowded room with a bored expression on his face. It’s really hopping, and the music is awesome. He hopes he’ll be able to wring a dance or two out of this job, because it’s been too long since he got to unwind, and there are, frankly, some really hot guys out there. He’s been depressingly chaste for way too long. Of course, Coulson’s never going to go for that, so if Clint’s looking for some action he’s gonna have to be a little sneaky about it. His nonchalant gaze sweeps past his mark as though he doesn’t see him, yet the young SHIELD agent catalogues everything he needs to know about the man in a mere moment.

“Target located,” he murmurs softly as he brings his drink up to hide the movement of hip lips.

“Affirmative,” comes Phil’s voice in his ear. “Security system acquisition in twelve seconds. Wait for my go-ahead, Agent Barton. Is that clear?”

“Yeah, yeah,” sighs Clint. “God knows you wouldn’t want me to stub my toe on the way across the room without you being able to see it.”

“Very amusing. Has anyone ever told you that you’re a horrible little brat, Agent?” asks Coulson softly, and Clint feels another one of those paralyzing jolts to his system.

“Ah…all the time, Sir,” he retorts as snarky as he can manage, which isn’t very, because he’s a little breathless. What the fuck, anyway? Coulson’s his handler. And boring. And stuffy. And as vanilla as they come.

“You’re a go, Agent.” He starts a little at Phil’s voice, then shakes it off and pushes away from the bar. The man he’s supposed to tag is on the other side of the dance floor, leaning against a wall and watching the room with hooded eyes. Clint decides he might as well get a kick out of this while he can, so he cuts straight through the press of bodies, enjoying the music and pausing to dance with a stranger or three when he’s grabbed by the hand or has to pause to look for an opening. He knows he’s attractive, sucks up the admiration like a sponge, laughing and dancing and flirting.

“Enjoying yourself?” Coulson’s voice is dry, and Clint almost loses his step, because Phil hardly ever breaks radio silence unless it’s necessary.

“Yup,” he murmurs, eyes glancing up to where the place’s cameras aim at the dance floor. He flips one of the black glassy eyes a bird and finishes making his way across the room.

In the end, it’s absurdly easy to accomplish his goal. The mark’s pretty drunk, and when Clint asks him to dance, it’s child’s play to press the transmitter into the skin under his armpit when he makes sure the guy staggers a little and Clint helps him keep his feet. It’s also easy to change his mind, tell the dude he’s too drunk to dance, and help him back to his place. The man protests, slurs that Clint’s pretty and he wants to spend some time with him. Clint laughs and pats him on the arm, promising to come back later. Not that he has any intention of doing so.

“Mission accomplished,” he says softly, turning away from the drunken fool and watching the crowd. There’s a man out there who appeals to him. He’s a little older than some of the other guys out there dancing, a few years older than Clint, but that’s fine. He got tired of inexperienced kids about the time he stopped being one himself. The man is a bit taller than he is, in good shape, wears his dark hair a little too long for professionalism, and knows how to dance. His jeans are snug, but not obscenely so, and his black t-shirt hugs his appealingly muscular torso.

“That’s a ten-four, Agent,” says Phil, sounding pleased. “And in excellent time. I’ll pick you up at the corner in ten.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so Sir,” says Clint meditatively, eyeing the guy on the dance floor and noticing that the man is eyeing Clint right back. He grins a little. “I’m gonna take a couple of hours personal time. I’ll meet you back at the room around midnight. Probably. If I’m a little late…don’t worry.”

“That’s a negative, Agent Barton,” snaps Phil. “You will keep the rendezvous as ordered.”

“What’s that, Sir?” asks Clint. “I’m having trouble hearing you. We must be picking up some sort of interference.” He plucks the mic out of his ear and drops it in his drink, setting the glass on a nearby table. He saunters out onto the dance floor, keeping his eyes pinned on the attractive stranger, letting the guy see that Clint’s interested. Clint knows he looks like sin incarnate in his skin-tight leather, and he works it for all its worth. He’s just about reached the man when Dead or Alive, the dance mix version of You Spin Me comes on, and Clint loves this song. So, apparently, does just about everybody else. The dance floor is starting to look a little like something out of a Roman orgy. Well, not quite, because mostly these men are still wearing clothes. Mostly.

He stops in front of his new target, the one who has nothing to do with the job and everything to do with Clint finally scoring some action after a long dry spell. He looks up from under his eyelashes and smiles slow and dirty.

“Hi,” he mouths, because there’s no way in hell the man will hear him, even if he screams. The man, who is just as attractive up close, looks him up and down appraisingly. Clint laughs and gives him a show, turning a slow pirouette on one foot that is as graceful as it is sexual. The man grins and reaches out to grab Clint by the hips, pulling him closer. Their bodies start to move together and it’s great. It’s not very long before a space actually clears around them because people nearby are watching and whistling appreciatively. Clint pulls out all the stops, using every trick in his book to turn this man on. It’s working, too. When he hops up into the muscular arms and rides the man’s hips like he’s fucking him, there’s definite arousal happening. Clint bites his lip and throws his head back, sweat sheening his throat while he moans and grinds against the rather impressive erection. Laughing, teasing, he hops down and then allows himself to be yanked close, their bodies pressed together in the heat and under the driving beat of the music. The song ends and there’s a brief respite. The man leans down the few inches it takes to put his mouth by Clint’s ear.

“I’m Warren,” he says loudly, so that Clint can hear him. “What’s somebody as pretty as you doing off his leash tonight?”

“I’m Clint,” the archer answers, “and I don’t have a leash. Got one you wanna put on me later? I can obey orders real good.”

“No,” says a cold voice behind him. “You don’t.”

Shit. Clint turns around to see his handler standing there glaring at him. He gets a funny feeling in his stomach at the expression on Phil’s face, and he doesn’t like it. The man he’s dancing with steps back and holds his hands out placatingly.

“Is this yours?” he asks a little nervously, because Phil, for all that he is generally mild-mannered and unassuming, looks just now as though he could kill both of them where they stand with a thought.

“Yes,” says Coulson shortly and when Clint starts to protest, the look his handler shoots him is dripping with dire consequences. He’s never seen Phil look quite this way before, and is suddenly concerned that something has happened but he didn’t hear about it because his earbud is currently drowning in a half-empty jack and coke. Phil has never, NEVER taken on the role of his boyfriend on an op, and thus Clint has no clue how he’s supposed to act. He just stands there feeling shell-shocked and probably looking really guilty. Warren glances at him and now he looks pissed too.

“Might want to have a word with your boy about his behavior then,” he snarls.

“I plan to,” says Phil, just as another song comes on. Rather than try to bellow over the music, he grabs Clint by the arm and hauls him off the floor, jerking his head at the Warren guy to follow them, which makes no sense at all. The bar has a number of side rooms as well as a back space devoted to pool and darts. It’s a lot less loud there. Phil shoves Clint in front of him and the archer has to throw his hands out to keep from taking a header over the edge of a pool table.

“Hey!” he says hotly, going to stand up and turn on his handler in outrage.

“Don’t you fucking move,” hisses Phil, which chills him to his bones. He’s really confused, and for whatever reason, Phil’s not giving him a clue as to what’s happened. He figures he’d better just go along with it, because it must be kinda big if Phil’s acting this way.

“Yes, Sir,” he says, staring at his hands where they are clenched against the green felt.

“Care to give me hand?” Phil asks the other man.

“I don’t like being made a fool of,” says the guy coldly. “What do you want me to do?”

“Hold his hands,” says Phil softly, and then he abruptly shoves Clint again, hard, so that he loses his balance and falls face-first onto the pool table. Before he can make his mind stop racing, the guy he’s recently been climbing like he’s a fucktoy on the dance floor has reached over the table and grabbed his wrists, stretching Clint’s arms out and pressing them hard against the slate.

“What the…?” cries Clint, but his words catch in his throat when Phil steps up behind him and he feels the older agent’s hands on his waist, sliding around to the laces at his fly. The leather pants tie at his waist as well as lacing up the outside of both his legs. And Coulson is _unlacing_ his fly. For about a second he’s nearly sure he feels Phil’s hard cock pressing against his ass while he reaches around to accomplish this, but that can’t be right. He must be imagining it. He has no idea what he’s supposed to be doing, and his brain is reeling with the possibilities of what may have gone wrong. This isn’t like Phil. He gets that dumping his transmitter would piss Coulson off, but it’s not like he’s never done something like this before. Phil always just gives him the usual lecture about safety, explains to him that he’s not here to ruin Clint’s life, just keep him alive. Clint listens, agrees with him, then does whatever the fuck he wants anyway. That what he wants is more often the things Phil asks of him than ever with any other handler he’s had is just because Phil’s less of an idiot than any other handler he’s ever had. Not like he marches to the guy’s beat or anything. In the field, even when coms get screwed up, Phil always manages to signal him somehow, and the fact that he hasn’t, so that Clint’s working without a script, scares him a little. Are they being watched? Is their cover blown? He chokes on a startled sound when Phil suddenly yanks his pants down to his thighs. He’s not wearing underwear. Mostly he doesn’t, but even if he did, the pants would’ve been too tight for them. He is distantly aware of a clinking sound, like metal, and wonders what it is. The people in the pool room are all watching with great interest. Clint tries really hard to ignore them, because he’s totally out of his element.

“Sir!” he cries, worried and freaked out and wondering who the fuck the guy holding his hands really is because all of a sudden he’s doubting it’s “Warren.”

“Shut your mouth, Clint,” hisses Phil. “I am sick of your shit, sick of you running off on your own and risking your health. You can throw your life and your relationships away all you want on your own time, but when you’re on my time, boy, you belong to ME.”

And oh Jesus fucking Christ, Clint becomes abruptly and painfully aware of what the clinking sound was when Phil’s belt cracks across his bare ass. He sucks in a breath and his body shudders violently. He tugs against the hold of the other man, but the guy’s really strong, and Clint has no leverage whatsoever. He hears someone whistle, then bites his lip when Phil lets him have it again. Oh god, he thinks wildly, I’m so screwed. It hurts like hell, but god DAMN it’s hot too, even with the audience. Maybe because of the audience. Does Phil know? Has SHIELD had him followed in Amsterdam, Berlin? He hasn’t actually DONE much at those clubs, mostly just hung out and watched, but this…bent over in front of a room full of people and whipped on his bare ass by his handler… Maybe Phil reads minds. Maybe Clint talks in his sleep. Maybe somehow he just knows about the dream, the one Clint won’t tell anyone. The one that has Phil in it. Phil, who in the dream acts remarkably like he’s doing right now. Clint bites back a yelp when Coulson puts his back into it, but he’s damned if he’ll lose it in front of these strangers. He doesn’t know what’s really going on, but if Phil feels compelled to put on this good a show, it’s probably important that Clint keep his wits about him. His dick doesn’t listen, and it’s so hard it hurts pressed against the hard wood of the pool table, but he throttles down on the part of him that wants to whimper and beg Phil to stop…except he won’t mean it, won’t really want him to stop and FUCK what the hell is wrong with him?? Dimly, he wonders if it’s possible that Phil is doing this because he’s pissed, and he just wants to, if maybe there isn’t really a covert reason for it and Clint has simply finally pushed his handler too far. But Phil’s not….not this guy, not this dominating, forceful, ruthless bastard who is humiliating Clint at the same time he’s arousing him hideously. No way. Gotta be some other reason. Doesn’t there? Clint grits his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut so he won’t have to see the grinning faces of the onlookers. He can’t stop hearing them though, jeering and whooping and egging Phil on, asking what the naughty little slut has done, why he’s being punished. Warren, or whoever the fuck he really is, calls over his shoulder to them that the bad little boy had slipped his leash and tried to cheat on his Daddy. After that, the crowd starts urging Phil to spank him harder. Someone yells at Clint, asks him how he likes his punishment. Clint has no idea why he allows the voice in his head to tell him any damn thing, but he can’t seem to help it. He lifts his head and grins crookedly, though it’s really hard to do it when what he wants is to howl and beg and whine and maybe even squeeze out a tear or two…

“About fuckin’ time,” is what he says, though his voice is a little breathless. This seems to enrage Phil, who lays into him even harder, the belt licking hard against his ass, his thighs, slipping around to bite at the insides of his thighs.

“Shit,” he hisses, bucking against the table, jerking to try to free his hands.

“Feeling sorry yet, little boy?” enquires Phil pleasantly. Oh. Maybe that’s what he’s waiting for.

“I’m SO sorry,” Clint yells. “PLEASE don’t punish me anymore Sir! It hurts so bad, I won’t do it again! PLEASE!”

After what seems an interminable amount of time during which Clint’s entire world becomes the vicious slap of leather against his naked flesh, while he continues to bite his lips between begging for forgiveness (he’s not too specific, because he’s still operating without a script but he really fucking wishes Phil would give a him a damn hint!), Phil finally stops beating him. He tugs Clint’s pants roughly up over his flaming ass and orders him to put himself back together. Coulson bows slightly to the raucous applause and cheers of the other men in the pool room, and shakes Warren’s hand, thanking him for his help. Warren apologizes for trying to make time with Phil’s boy, and Phil assures him that he’s not at fault. He then turns to Clint, who has mostly succeeded at lacing the fly of his pants back up, and grabs him by the upper arm. Clint hopes that unresisting is the right choice of attitude, and lets himself be towed out of the bar. He starts to ask Phil what’s going on once they’ve stepped back out into the cool Southern air, but Phil glares at him so fiercely that he thinks better of it, and waits until they’re back in the car. He winces when he sits down in the passenger seat, and hopes Phil hasn’t noticed his erection. He has no idea how he’s going to be able to look Phil in the eye ever again, because what the agent has done tonight has completely ruined Clint’s ability to view him as merely a lifeless agent of SHIELD and one more in a long line of handlers who will tires of him and foist him off on someone else soon. No, Phil has removed himself from the category that includes co-workers, superiors, stuffed shirts, and stolid company men into the category that includes people Clint thinks are hot and wouldn’t mind fucking. Who is he kidding? He’s found Coulson attractive for months now. He’s just going to have a harder time ignoring it now. He looks at Phil out of the corner of his eyes as Phil drives them back to the hotel. A muscle in the handler’s jaw jumps as he grits his teeth.

“Sir?” says Clint, hating that he feels so embarrassed and confused. “What the hell was that about?”

“Do you think I’m an idiot, Agent Barton?” Phil replies, which doesn’t seem exactly like an answer.

“Um…no?” says Clint, mystified.

“Do you think I’m some kind of mindless robot without feelings?”

“Fuck no, Sir. You’re way less annoying than a robot,” says Clint, who finds the robots and androids SHIELD sometimes uses sort of creepy.

“How many times have I sent you undercover to flirt with a mark?” continues Phil, his voice deceptively soft. Clint’s perfectly aware Phil knows the answer to this.

“Seventeen?” he asks cautiously, even though he knows this to be correct.

“Seventeen,” says Phil through his teeth, still not looking at Clint. “Seventeen times, and I’ve watched twelve of them, and had to listen to the rest. While you flaunted yourself, acted like a filthy little whore, knowing I was watching or listening the whole time. Taunting me. Laughing about it while you described every detail to me later.”

Clint stares at Phil in growing astonishment, which turns finally to anger as they pull in to the parking lot of their hotel.

“That….that wasn’t part of our COVER?” he cries in outrage, getting out of the car and slamming the door before following hot on Phil’s heels into the room. Once the door is closed, Phil spins to face him. His eyes are black pools of rage.

“No!” he shouts. “That was me being SICK of you flaunting yourself like a two-dollar whore. I’ve had it, Agent. With your attitude, your irresponsibility, and your disregard for my feelings!”

Clint’s speechless for several seconds, staring at his handler in disbelief. His brain is still trying to wrap itself around the fact that the man has bent him over and spanked him IN PUBLIC just because he WANTED to.

“Fuck YOU,” he finally shouts back. “Sir.”

“Would you like that?” asks Coulson in a soft, dangerous voice. “Would you like me to? Would you have liked it if I’d taken you, right there on that pool table while everyone watched, after I finished beating your ass?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” yells Clint, refusing to answer those questions on the grounds that he’s not at all sure what would come out of his mouth if he did. “God, ASSHOLE!”

Almost casually, because in Clint’s mind he sees it happening as though in slow motion, Phil backhands him across the face. He feels his teeth cut the inside of his mouth a little.

“You’ll keep your disrespectful tongue in your mouth if you know that’s good for you,” snarls Phil. Clint’s both completely shocked and outraged at the same time. He steps closer to Phil and his fist flies, almost of its own accord, flashes out and punches Coulson in the face. Phil somehow sees it coming, and turns his head so that Clint’s fist does no more than graze him. That is all it takes to snap the fragile silvery wire that is their control over their anger.

Clint’s younger and stronger than Phil, but the handler has a lot more training in hand-to-hand combat. They’re reasonably well matched as they lose their tempers and proceed to beat the shit out of each other. As they are both pretty good at this, more blows miss than hit their marks. They’re even able to converse, to a degree, as they circle and clash and punch and kick.

“Don’t you dare stand there and pretend you didn’t like it,” hisses Phil, grunting a little as Clint’s fist plows into his stomach, dancing back to avoid the full force of the blow. “You’ve had a hard on since I dragged you into that pool hall. Fuck, Barton…you’re hard _now_.”

“My dick is none of your business,” rages Clint, wondering if he’s so pissed because it’s true. He fails to block in time and Phil’s foot connects with his ribs, making him gasp a little.

“Do you want to know what IS my business,” Phil demands. “It’s my business to keep you SAFE, and you do your damnedest to make that almost impossible. You’re careless, and you’re thoughtless.”

“Bullshit,” pants Clint, blocking the next kick and answering it with one of his own, which Phil doesn’t entirely manage to dodge.

“Did you ever stop to wonder, you thoughtless little brat, how it feels when you disappear? When you go silent? When I sit there and wonder if you’re all right, if you’re even still ALIVE?”

This stops Clint in his tracks, frozen in the middle of a jab aimed at Phil’s nose. Because he hasn’t thought. Not once. He can plainly hear the anguish in Phil’s voice, knows it isn’t feigned. He stares at Phil with wide eyes, feeling like an asshole. Phil takes advantage of his chagrin and rushes him, pushing him back and following until Clint crashes into the door. His head snaps back to thud against the steel of it. He sees stars, but shoves the disorientation down desperately.

“Sir,” he whispers, at a loss for any other words. Phil doesn’t let go, but the fist he’s drawn back to plow into Hawkeye’s face freezes, slowly unclenching. The hand moves a lot more slowly than one meant to assault, and Clint shivers when Phil’s fingers brush gently over a blossoming bruise on his cheek. Clint’s eyelids flutter shut and he sucks in a breath. As he regains his sense, and is preparing to escape Phil’s hold on him and kick the shit out of him, Phil leans closer and all of a sudden he’s kissing Clint, brutally, biting at Clint’s lips and forcing his mouth open so he can sweep his tongue in and plunder the inside of his mouth. Clint makes a muffled sound and even in his own mind he has no idea whether it is protest or desire. He bucks against Phil a little, but all it does is bring their bodies closer together. Phil’s cock is hard when their hips collide, and then press tightly together. This time there’s no question that the sound Clint makes is a whimper. Phil growls and grinds himself hard against Clint’s body. Clint moans raggedly into Coulson’s mouth.

“Say yes, Clint,” Phil murmurs, their mouths mere millimeters apart. “You have no idea what It’s been like, watching you, working with you, seeing you use that perfect body to charm and seduce. It made me so hard it hurt, every time, not able to DO anything about it.”

“You’re….doing something…now, Sir,” pants Clint, rutting himself against Phil’s charcoal grey trousers.

“Say yes,” whispers the handler. “I can’t do it, Clint. Can’t sit back and watch anymore. See you give yourself to strangers, to assholes who wouldn’t be worthy of you in a million years. Can’t stand when you come back smelling of someone else’s perfume or sex. You’re _mine_.”

The statement is outrageous, because there’s nothing between them, never has been, never CAN be, and Phil has to know this, but right now Clint doesn’t care. Down deep in his guts, where logic and harsh reality give way to the needs of his flesh and the desires of his heart, Phil is right. Clint is his, has been since the day they were assigned to one another. His brain may be shrieking at him that this isn’t supposed to….no, that it _can’t_ happen, but nerve and sinew, blood and bone are Phil’s anyway.

“Yes,” he whispers. Phil groans softly and spins them a little, shoving again so that they fall onto the nearest bed, his body pressing Clint down into the mattress where he resumes the hot, filthy kisses. Clint whines in his throat and arches his hips up to meet the older man’s. Both of them are so hard it almost hurts when their dicks rub together. There’s a pause filled with panting and frustrated growls while they tear at one another’s clothes until they are naked, and Clint whimpers at the feel of his handler’s skin, heated and so, so perfect against his own. Phil draws his head back from Clint’s mouth and frowns down at him a little, panting. Clint makes a forlorn little sound at the loss.

“God,” whispers Phil raggedly. “You’re perfect, Clint. Knew you’d be. I’ve wanted this, wanted you for so long….”

“Me too,” breathes Clint, trying to tug Phil back down to the kissing. The kissing is good. That needs to keep happening.

“It’s just….all those times, watching you, listening….Jesus, made me so hard I couldn’t stand it. Did you know I’d touch myself, Clint? When it was just the two of us, and I was alone in a van or the car or a room like this one? I’d watch and listen to you, and I couldn’t help it, had to come, even if it was by myself…”

“Fuck, Sir,” pants Clint, “that’s fuckin’ hot. _Please!_ ”

“Please what?” asks Phil, his lips quirking a little.

“You’re not by yourself now,” replies the archer, rocking his hips against Phil’s body and gasping. “C’mon Sir, do it. Fuck me. Want you to. Please!”

“Shit,” mutters Phil, “Knew you’d beg for it, thought about it so many times. Clint…I….” he hesitates.

“What?” gasps Hawkeye, frustrated and needy.

“I don’t think I can be gentle, Agent Barton,” admits Coulson ruefully. Clint groans again.

“Fuck, Sir, if you tried to be, I’d fuckin’ bite you. Goddamn, Coulson, just take me already, I’m gonna come on your leg in a minute.”

“Bite me, hm?” says Phil with a shark-like grin, so Clint lifts his head off the mattress and does so, bites Phil’s collarbone and then laves the spot with his tongue. Phil snarls and forces Clint’s head back down with one hand on his throat, which makes Clint whimper and squirm. Phil likes it. Oh, he does. His eyes are almost black with need, and his smile is bestial, savage. He forces Clint’s head to the side and returns the favor, biting hard on the side of his throat, down to his shoulder, then moves further while Clint wriggles and curses, to bite his nipples. Hawkeye gasps and bucks against Coulson’s body. Phil growls and tells him to be still.

“Can’t,” says Clint breathlessly, tugging Phil back up so he can kiss him some more. It degenerates into a mindless, brutal wrestling match for a while, because neither one of them can seem to touch the other enough, or hard enough, and they savage one another with teeth and nails and brute force. Finally they are back where they started, with Phil on top of Clint, using his body’s weight to push Clint down, and they stare at one another, gasping for breath and grinning at each other like morons despite the fact that both of them are bleeding in more than one place.

“Turn over,” orders Phil, and damn if Clint doesn’t love that he’s bossy. He turns over when Phil lifts up enough to allow him to move. Coulson makes a very satisfied sound when he sees the state of Clint’s ass, which is covered with welts and still blazing hot to the touch. Which Phil does, pinching the welts his belt has left until Clint curses and whines, scratching the reddened skin with his fingernail to make Clint squirm.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Clint groans. “You’re an asshole, Sir.”

“Mm,” agrees Phil, pinching harder. Then, because he is being an asshole, he spanks Clint hard with his hand, and there’s no audience this time, nobody to see if he reacts, so he does. The archer yelps and writhes under Coulson’s punishing hand.

“Ohgod,” Clint moans, lifting his hips to meet the cruel slaps. “Fuck, Sir. Hurts.”

“Good,” says Phil sharply, hitting him harder. “Did you like it when I did this to you in front of those men at the club?”

“No,” whimpers Clint, and is rewarded with an even harder slap. “Shit!”

“Should I use my belt on you again, boy?” purrs Phil and Clint’s toes curl a little at the tone of slick menace in his voice. Coulson ceases the spanking and does something even more interesting. He strokes his finger down the crease of Hawkeye’s ass, finding his pucker. Clint sucks in his breath and Phil chuckles, gently tickling and stroking at the younger man’s entrance while Clint sighs and arches up into the touch, wanting Phil to use that finger a little more forcefully. Instead, the bastard removes it and spanks him again, harder. “You’re going to want to answer the question,” advises Phil mildly.

“Oh no, please,” begs Hawkeye, and mostly he really means it, because he’s sore as hell and isn’t sure he could handle more of Phil’s belt without breaking down and bawling. While the concept is interesting….no, compelling, he doesn’t want that right now.

“Then I’ll have truth from you, Clint.” 

The archer sighs.

“Yes,” he whispers, so softly he’s not even sure Phil hears him.

“Yes what, Clint,” demands Phil ruthlessly, and Clint squirms some more.

“I liked it. Fuck. You happy now?”

He yelps again, in surprise this time, when Phil suddenly shoves the finger he’d been teasing Clint with into his hole. It is wet and slippery now, and Clint thinks dazedly that Coulson’s really good at multitasking, because he hadn’t even heard the man open the bottle of lube that is miraculously sitting on the bedside table now. Phil doesn’t give him time to adjust to the finger, he just fucks Clint’s hole with it hard, and it feels so good Clint wants to scream. He shudders and moans instead and lifts his ass to meet the hard jabs, whispering filth under his breath. Phil chuckles again, more softly, and Clint whimpers a little at the evil sound.

“What do you think, boy,” hisses Phil, leaning down close to his ear. “Are you ready for me? Should I just shove my cock up your ass right now, and let you scream from the burn? It’s what I want to do, Clint. All these months of torture, watching never touching, listening never speaking….I want to hurt you for it, Clint. God help me, I do. I want to take you so hard you forget everyone else, claim you as mine and damn the consequences.”

“Do it,” pants Clint. It’s been a while. It’ll hurt some, but he knows he can take it. Perversely, he wants it to hurt. Doesn’t know what that says about him, but Phil’s so fucking hot right now he can’t be bothered to care. “Do it, Sir. Fuck me. Now, Phil. Please. I don’t care, do it, fuck me now. C’mon. Fuckfuckfuck. I need you to.”

Phil rolls onto him, catching both of Clint’s wrists in his hands and pressing them hard against the mattress at the same time that the head of his cock nudges against the archer’s tight, slick hole. There’s a split second when it feels like the world holds its breath, and then Clint’s brain goes white when Phil shoves his cock brutally into the younger agent’s asshole. Clint howls, because oh Jesus, oh shit, oh FUCK it burns.

“Wait,” he cries, “stop! I’m not…. _hnguh…._ Phil!”

“Shut your fucking mouth, Clint,” says Phil pleasantly, shoving forward another couple of inches. “I’ll have what’s mine now, and you’ll take it and like it. And you are, Clint.”

“I am what?” wavers Clint thickly, his voice clogged with tears of pain he doesn’t, quite, shed.

“Mine,” says Phil definitely, forcing Clint’s hole open all the way and burying himself balls deep in the whimpering agent’s ass. Clint wails in pain, but is unable to keep his hips still, rutting a little against the rough motel comforter.

“I… _ohgod_ …yeah,” he whispers. “I am.”

Phil doesn’t give him much time to adjust, just fucks into him hard, making him whimper and gasp and sob a little, though he doesn’t cry, not really. It takes all of about a minute before Clint’s brain goes completely blank of anything but the drugging pleasure of his handler reaming out his ass so hard he can hardly breathe between vicious thrusts. It’s the kind of fucking he’s always, ALWAYS wanted and has never gotten. It’s better than the dreams he’s been having, because it’s real, and Phil is both brutal and tender with him at the same time, fucking into him mercilessly while at the same time brushing kisses against the back of his neck and his temple when he turns his head to the side, whispering to Clint that he is beautiful and perfect and feels so good.

“ _Ohhhhhh,”_ sighs Clint ecstatically, gripping the comforter with his fingers in the places where Phil presses his wrists into it, wishing he could _move_ more. “Phil,” he whimpers, “God, Sir, do it. Fuck me. Harder, I don’t care. _Hng._ Want you to. _Nngh._ Jesus, shit. Phil. Sir, oh god, it hurts.”

“I mean it to,” snarls Phil, which makes Clint moan louder.

“PLEASE,” he cries, fingers scrabbling at the tacky bedspread, toes digging to try to find purchase. It’s not that he minds being held down, actually it just fucking does it for him, but he wants…. He wants….

Phil lets go of his wrists abruptly, grasping him by his hips, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, and yanks him up to his knees, shoving his hips forward by the expedient method of using his dick to force Clint to move. He scrambles to cooperate, almost sobbing with gratitude when he can raise himself up off the bed and slap his palms against the walls, bracing his body so that he’s forced to take the full punishing impact of Phil’s merciless fucking, bracing himself and pushing back into it, and he shouts frantically with every thrust, rocking back into Phil’s body. The handler’s cock _slams_ into his prostate now, and it’s almost too intense. Almost, however, is never enough for Clint, who burns brightest when things reach critical.

“More,” he whispers. “Ohgod, Sir, s…so good. _Ahhgh._ Hurts so fuckin much. Gonna come soon, Sir. God. Fuck me. Shit. Yeah. Do it. Gonna come, Sir. For you. Oh. Ohhh…”

His whispered muttering turns into a pained yelp when Phil leans close and bites his shoulder, really fucking hard.

“OW!” he cries. “Shit, that hurt. No, do it again.”

Phil somehow manages to not stop his merciless assault while at the same time bursting out laughing.

“Clint,” he whispers, nipping more softly, murmuring against Clint’s hot, sweaty skin, lips and tongue tickling the younger agent’s fevered flesh. “Are you close?”

“Ohhhh,” whimpers Clint. “Yesssss. Please Sir, I’m gonna….I’m….”

“Come,” hisses Phil in his ear, spearing him with his cock so hard that Clint’s cry when the pleasure gets to be too much and spills out of his body in a clenching rush of heat and mindless, perfect bliss, is as much pain as pleasure. It’s great. No, it’s _awesome._ Phil’s cock jabs hard into his shivering body once, twice, then on the third Phil is still, buried deep in Clint’s body while he roars through his release, his cock pulsing and jerking inside Clint’s twitching, aching hole.

They are motionless for quite some time then, their bodies almost frozen in a rictus of agonized perfection. They’ve braced themselves against wall and skin, knees spread so that they won’t collapse while they fuck themselves blind, and now it feels like they’re kind of stuck there, gasping for breath and shaking, laughing a little, but not wanting to move. Phil finally breaks the spell that holds them thus, by leaning close and swiping his tongue up Clint’s throat, making him shiver.

“Ah! Fuck, Sir. You really are an asshole,” says the archer in an aggrieved tone. Phil laughs. They manage to disconnect and collapse onto the bed, side by side, staring at the ceiling while their chests heave.

“Okay, beautiful boy?” asks Phil, and Clint knows the spell is broken. No, not broken, just finished. There wasn’t anything broken about what happened.

“I think possibly my left elbow might not hurt,” says Clint meditatively.

“So you’re saying I should try harder next time?” asks Phil archly, and Clint groans.

“No thanks. I’m gonna feel this, all of it, for weeks. It’s perfect. Was it… was it anything like what you wanted?” he asks, feeling strangely timid all of a sudden. Phil rolls onto his side, facing Clint, and his fingers stroke gently down the archer’s face and throat, then cups his chin gently and turns Clint’s face until their eyes lock.

“Baby,” whispers Phil, “it was _perfect._ All those years, all the times I wanted to do that to you so badly, I imagined it _just_ like what happened tonight. It couldn’t have been better if it had been real and four years ago. No, that’s not true. It would have been a disaster four years ago, or six or even two, because even though we had to wait a long time, it was worth waiting so that it could be the RIGHT time. But this… you were amazing. Thank you.”

Clint grins crookedly and nods, then wriggles closer and buries his face against Phil’s throat, tucked under his chin, and sighs happily. He’s glad Phil got what he wanted, glad he was part of giving it to him, and it had been incredibly hot and fun and amazing, but he also feels like he’s been put through some kind of metaphysical meat grinder, because actually hitting Phil was one of the most wrenching things he’s ever done, and now that they are where they are now, he has no wish to go back to what they were. He’s not interested in the asshole he used to be, doesn’t like thinking about the ways he hurt Phil so many times, either unconsciously or through being stupid and thoughtless. Because he is Phil, and knows Clint, often as well as Clint knows himself, Coulson catches the directions of the archer’s thoughts

“Clint,” he says gently, and Clint presses his mouth to Phil’s neck and makes needy sounds in his throat while he licks the salt from his Master’s skin, because he’s not sure he wants to know what Phil’s going to say. Phil huffs out a small laugh and shoves at Clint’s shoulder, though it’s not much of a shove. Clint sighs and pulls back to look at Phil’s face. Coulson’s smiling affectionately, so it must be all right. “Don’t,” says Phil softly. “It’s just like you said before, remember? I wouldn’t change one single thing in the paths we took to get to where we are now. Not one. I fell in love with you while you were still that reckless, heedless boy who made me want to spank him raw or hold him down and fuck him blind, or tear my hair out in annoyance. Whatever happened to us or between us in the past, love, is important only because it brought us here.”

Phil’s very good at turning Clint’s own words back around on him when he wants to make a point. In this case, there’s nothing Clint can argue with, because it’s true. Their lives have been hard. In both of their pasts there is regret, pain, sorrow. There’s never been a easy button for either of them. They could spend their time looking backwards, but it seems a little silly, when the view out there is a little dark, a little scary, lonely, fraught with danger and with pain. The view from the front though, shines at Clint in Phil’s eyes, and that’s the direction he turns.

“I love you,” he whispers, and the light gets even brighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all SO much for all your input on what Phil should want Clint to help him realize. It ended up that the suggestions of several people blended together to create this chapter. I also got several ideas for upcoming chapters, so I'm very grateful to everyone who contributed their thoughts!
> 
> Now, to explain the roleplay you've just read. In my mind it seemed to work that Phil has actually known for a long time that he's attracted to Clint. That being the case, it would have been hell for him to watch Clint but never be able to touch him the way he really wanted to. Finding Clint dancing with Thor brought all of it back in a rush, and Phil is forcibly reminded of how much it turned him on to watch Clint work and how frustrating it had been. Thus....they go back in time and act out what might have happened if Phil hadn't stayed quiet, if he had acted on his feelings then. The scene is depicted as a sort of flashback. Phil actually commandeers as helijet and various other pieces of equipment. They actually go to Atlanta, where Phil has an old fried who will help them. Their negotiations worked out the salient points of the scene, including the part where Phil spanks Clint in public. The "mark" in the story is nothing but the most likely drunk guy Clint can find. The roles Clint and Phil play are as true to their old, platonic relationship as they can recreate. Phil has had to do a lot of convincing to make Clint feel okay about defying and attacking him even in play, but Clint does it because it's what Phil wants. Before proceeding, they made a few changes to the backstory that made the whole thing work better for them. The fantasy Clint is bisexual, whereas the real Clint, at the time they're returning to, was not, at least not overtly so, although the timeframe does coincide with the time in which he started having dreams about Phil. I chose Atlanta, and Mary's because descriptions of the place painted it as pretty outrageous on time nights and I felt it might be the sort of place where Phil's treatment of Clint would be thoroughly enjoyed and yet be outside the realm of the BDSM lifestyle. They have also carefully mapped out their fight. Though it is stated that the two of them are relatively evenly matched, it's a fabrication of theirs, because in an earlier part Phil has told Clint he's aware Clint could take him at any time, even back when Clint was younger and less experienced. It may seem like a contradiction, but is on purpose, a key part that helps them keep the scene as safe as possible and lets Clint feel as okay as he can about hitting Phil.


	16. Part Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A request for a glimpse at what motivates Phil to Dominate Clint Barton is answered. Then there is sex. Clint gets an unusual and overwhelming scene at the hands of both his lovers and is a very, very happy man. Did I mention there is sex? Just really a lot of completely unjustified filth, with some introspection from Phil Coulson beforehand to justify calling it a chapter.

He’s not sure how it happens, but somehow over the course of just a few days, it becomes a thing everybody takes for granted that all of them will end up in the game room after dinner to hang out. It doesn’t really matter what they do. Sometimes they spread out and just randomly goof off with the zillion different forms of entertainment to be found there. Clint can never get anybody to play darts with him, to his disgust. Tony and Steve often play Call of Duty. Steve, as it turns out, is astonishingly good at every video game he tries out. Tony, as it turns out, adamantly refuses to accept the fact that Steve kicks his ass nearly every time they go head to head. Sometimes everybody else sits around and makes bets on their contests, choosing one of them to heckle, and generally critiquing their play styles while Tony insults Steve and Steve serenely goes on kicking his ass. Sometimes Jane and Darcy convince a few of the guys to dance. Natasha almost never sides with them. Clint happens to know she’s an amazing dancer. He thinks dancing of any kind makes her remember too many times she’s done it for the job. It just doesn’t hit her radar as recreation. Sometimes (thankfully not often) there is karaoke. He’s thankful it isn’t often because they NEVER let him get away with not singing. He has no idea why it makes him self-conscious, because as it turns out, he has a damn fine singing voice, but it does. Probably it’s because in his line of work, you don’t put yourself in the spotlight. It’s not like signing is one of those skills he’s proud of because he’s worked hard to become expert at it. He doesn’t try to be a good singer, he’s just a natural. It’s like being admired for having been born a redhead, or double-jointed. Sometimes they watch a movie (or two). Sometimes there is pool. Sometimes, like tonight, they end up sprawled in various luxuriously comfortable chairs, just talking. These evenings may not be the most _fun_ they have, but they’re certainly the most _interesting._ This is especially true since Darcy joined them, because that girl has no brain filter whatsoever and says anything that comes to her mind. She has no shame, no self-consciousness, and there is literally no topic she seems to find off-putting. Tonight is an excellent example of this tendency, as Darcy has just broken a comfortable silence by asking Clint how he got the bruise on the back of his neck. He supposes maybe wearing a tank shirt wasn’t the best choice, with its low neck in front and back, but what the hell. He’s not ashamed of any of the marks on his body, however they got there. He wonders if he should feel even a tiny bit bad that Steve’s already doing his turtle imitation and hunching his shoulders like he can pull his head in and pretend they’re not a bunch of raging freaks. Cause he doesn’t. Feel bad, that is. Sometimes Steve’s pathetically easy to alarm. Then again, there have been moments, mere flashes of something shadowed in those deep blue eyes that makes him wonder if there’s more to Steve than he’s letting on. He doesn’t know much about Steve’s childhood, except that he was a scrawny kid who got bullied a lot. He wonders about Steve’s parents’ relationship, because he knows that in the 30s and 40s it was still considered okay in a lot of places for men to punish their wives for disobedience. Someday he thinks it might be really interesting to push Steve just a little, scratch that shiny surface and see what’s underneath.

Meanwhile, everyone’s looking at him. The expressions on the faces of his team and friends is a revealing study in who else among them are the vanillas and who are not. Bruce looks a little uncomfortable but amused. Bruce, Clint thinks, will probably never be able to find out if he’s kinky or not, because he doesn’t even know if Bruce is able to have sex, and that’s a damn shame, because Clint likes the way Darcy looks at Bruce a lot. Erik is very good at studiously ignoring everyone, and will probably head to his room soon anyway. Despite the fact that he’s only a little older than Phil, the generation gap between Selvig and the rest of them is pretty apparent sometimes. It isn’t that they don’t get along, because they do, it’s just that their minds tend to work differently. Steve’s obvious, his ears turning red and his shoulders hunching uncomfortably. Interestingly though, Steve won’t walk out when the topic goes outside his comfort zone. He takes his position as team leader very seriously, and to him that means knowing what’s going on in everyone’s lives, even if it alarms the hell out of him. How weird is it that every single other person in the room is grinning at him expectantly? Sometimes he wonders what the world would think if they knew half the Avengers are usually hiding bruises under their uniforms or costumes when they’re out fighting evil. And not the kind you get from supervillains. Usually.  Ok, so Phil’s grin is actually more predatory than expectant. He is, after all, the person responsible for the bruise.

“Phil bit me,” says Clint easily. Darcy laughs delightedly and gets up. She steps behind his chair and shoves his head forward, so he ducks it obligingly and she pokes the spot, pulling his shirt away from his back to peer down it, looking for more. “Sorry babe, the rest of them aren’t visible. And before you ask, no, I’m not taking my pants off.”

“You would if I told you to,” says Phil softly, but Clint knows he won’t. It’s not that Phil’s ashamed of what they are, quite the opposite in fact. It’s just that he doesn’t see a need to exert his authority in front of the team, and unless it’s in an appropriate setting, he generally prefers to keep the D/s displays private. Phil’s ego needs no stroking.

“Of course I would,” says Clint, meaning every word, because he honestly doesn’t give a shit if Phil wants to strip him down and  fuck him in front of everybody in the room. He’s at least 99% sure that’s not going to happen, not unless the audience gets a bit smaller and more selective anyway, but he wouldn’t care. He understands intellectually that even the thought of something like that coming from Pepper would send Tony flying for the other side of the globe and coming from him would cause Tasha to kill someone slowly and painfully, he just doesn’t really identify with their feelings. These people, as surprising as it continues to be to him sometimes, are his friends. Either they will continue to be his friends no matter what his chosen lifestyle, or they are not his friends to begin with. What he and Phil do, and he and Natasha and sometimes all three of them, hurts nobody but him (and occasionally Tasha). He hasn’t got much of a sense of personal pride left. Well, he’s pretty sure he’s still as stubborn as hell and has a smart mouth and a little bit of an overconfidence issue. But when it comes to Phil, he has no sense of self. There is only Phil, and whatever he wants from Clint. He doesn’t try to explain this to anybody but Natasha, because he’s not absolutely sure they would be able to understand. It doesn’t make him a doormat or a victim, because the first time Phil harms him, he’s out the door. The thing is, he has no concerns that will ever happen. How do you really explain to someone who isn’t a true submissive how it feels to really give all of yourself to another person? Not just your heart, but complete control over your body too. To surrender choice and free will because it is what makes him feel more free than he ever has? To never worry that he is maybe not good enough because he knows, all the way down to a cellular level, that Phil is proud of him, and pleased with him, and will never harm him. He’s safe, and he can let go of his sense of self and revel in the debauchery and filth of belonging to someone who cherishes what he gives at the same time that they adore making him beg for mercy. He doesn’t try, because pretty much either you get it or you don’t. Darcy, however, pouts a little that he won’t show her the rest of the marks on his body. Actually, he doesn’t have a lot of them right now. Phil’s been pretty busy the last few days.

“Okay,” says Darcy, turning to look at Phil with narrowed eyes. “I get why Clint’s into all this masochistic stuff. I mean, circus freaks taught him about sex. He like, had almost no chance to be vanilla. Plus he’s an adrenaline junkie and he has that hot leather costume so he’s like ready for porn all the time anyway.”

Clint finds Darcy’s logic fascinating.

“So what’s _your_ excuse?” she continues, pointing at Phil shrewdly. Every head in the room turns to look at Coulson with great interest. Clint’s not going to be surprised if Phil avoids the question, because he’s not a huge fan of revealing a lot of personal stuff to people he doesn’t know well, though he kind of wishes Phil would answer this one. Phil glances at Clint and raises one eyebrow. Clint nods almost imperceptibly and smiles in what he hopes is received as a hopeful manner.

“My excuse?” asks Phil mildly. Darcy narrows her eyes even further and Clint wonders for a second if she’s going to threaten to taze him, because that’s sort of her default response to everything.

“Yeah,” she responds. “What’s in it for you?”

Phil raises his eyebrows and gives her a look that says, Really? And glances at Clint so you can almost hear him thinking, Have you LOOKED at him?

“Okay, we all know he’s man candy, Phil,” she says with exaggerated patience. “So how come you like to break your candy before you eat it?’

Clint mostly manages to muffle the strangled hilarity that bubbles up in his chest.

“I’m pretty sure she means she can understand why Clint likes what he likes, but she wants to know your motivation, Agent Coulson,” says Bruce helpfully. Darcy rolls her eyes. She does this a lot with Bruce. “Not,” the physicist continues, “that it’s any of her business.”

“No, no,” says Tony, leaning forward to shove Bruce back in his chair a little. “Shut up, Doc. I want to hear this one too. I mean, it’s easy to see what Pepper gets out of it,” he says, a little sly, shooting his lover a look over his shoulder that is both snarky and sweet at the same time. “I mean look at me.”

“What he means is that dating him would make any woman need to smack him around on a daily basis,” says Pepper, completely unperturbed and smiling just as sweetly back at Tony.

The taunting is all good-natured, but Clint feels separate from it somehow. Not in a bad way, it’s just that Darcy’s question has captivated him now.

“I’d kind of like to hear this too,” he murmurs softly. Phil stares at him thoughtfully for a few minutes, a faint smile playing at his lips.

“You’re all worse than highschoolers,” he says with amusement, though at the statement his eyes rest on Clint for several seconds and his eyes are very dark. “But if you insist, I don’t suppose I mind talking about it, since you see evidence of my…. Predilections….walking around here every day anyway.”

“Oh, we SO insist,” says Darcy with satisfaction, sitting back in her chair and looking at Phil expectantly.

“I won’t pretend to be an expert on the psychological motivations behind a desire to dominate or to cause pain. I’m sure there are many. I imagine a great many people develop the desire through feelings of powerlessness in childhood. Or from having been bullied. Or from overbearing parents. Well,” he stops with a rueful smile. “I did say I _wasn’t_ going to pretend to that. I suppose I mention those reasons because they’re just not valid for me. I had a relatively normal childhood, in the clichéd sense of the word. My parents got along, my siblings and I had the normal squabbles but we love each other very much….”

“Which one were you in school, Agent?” teases Tony. “Jock or geek? I’m betting geek.”

“No,” murmurs Clint. “I bet you were a jock, Sir.”

“No way,” argues Tony.

“You’d lose that bet, Stark,” says Phil, laughing a little. “I started playing football in elementary school, and it took me all the way through college. My senior year I had to choose between the Steelers and Nick Fury. The rest of that, as they say, is history.”

“You were drafted by the _Steelers?_ ” demands Tony incredulously. “But they wouldn’t let you wear a suit on a football field!”

Clint finds it somehow impossibly hot that Phil was good enough to play professional football but chose instead to sign with Fury and SHIELD.

“Contrary to what you might think,” says Phil humorously, “I wasn’t actually born wearing Dolce and Gabbana, Stark. I even had hair long enough to wear in a ponytail in college.”

“I’m finding it hard to even believe you ever had HAIR.” says Tony.

“Tony?” says Clint softly.

“What?”

“Shut up.”

Tony opens his mouth to utter some doubtlessly witty retort but all that comes out is a strangled sound. Pepper has placed her foot gently in his lap and started to press down slowly on the part of Tony’s anatomy he values most, although the suit probably runs a very close second, and on some days even edges it out for the win. She smiles sweetly at Tony and looks at Phil.

“Do go on, Phil. I don’t think you’ll be interrupted again. What do you think, Tony?”

“I’m… _hngh…._ all ears,” gasps Tony.

“Thank you, Pepper. You’re a lady as always,” smiles Phil, and Clint can’t help but laugh at the expression on Tony’s face as he tries to decide whether to be pissed, agonized or turned-on. It looks to Clint like he finally settles on two out of three, and he’s definitely not pissed. “At any rate, my point, I suppose, is that my attraction to being the Dominant partner in a relationship doesn’t stem from any of those sources some people might expect. I’ve known I was gay for a long time. I really think I knew I was different from other boys my age even before puberty, although after that I realized fairly quickly what the difference was. I hid it, as I expect most did back then, for many years. I didn’t date in high school, except to have a token girlfriend as was expected of the captain of the football team. She was my best friend, and she knew without me having to tell her where my interests lay. She kept my secret and made sure everybody who mattered knew what a powerhouse I was in bed.” He smiles a little ruefully. “The funny thing is, when I finally drummed up the courage to tell my parents, it turned out they’d known all along. It hadn’t mattered to them. Realizing that was a little bit like….opening the sluice gates on a dam?” he grins at Clint. “I lost my virginity when I was eighteen, my freshman year in college. After that I…hm…,”

“Cut a swathe through the gay population of Clemson and never looked back?” suggests Clint with a grin of his own in return.

“That’s one way to put it,” agrees Phil. Darcy whoops.

“Go Phil! You DOG!”

“That’s not actually much of an exaggeration,” says Phil modestly. “I learned about the gay leather community around that time, and I just immersed myself into it as if I’d always been there. I think, for me, there are two sides of neing a Dominant in the lifestyle. I am a Dom on one side because I have always loved taking care of those who matter to me. I looked after my younger siblings, the new kids on the team, because I needed to do it. That’s just something you’re born with, I expect.” He looks at Clint again and his smile this time is fond. “It probably makes me a better handler too.”

“That,” says Darcy shrewdly, “doesn’t explain the bruise on Hawkeye’s neck, Mr. Super Agent Man.”

“No, I don’t suppose it does,” agrees Phil. “I suppose the….sadism….is a little harder to explain. It’s the tendency to say, this is wrong. To enjoy hurting people is a terrible thing, and makes you a bad person. Believe me, I have done more than my share of soul-searching about it over the years. I didn’t pull the wings off flies as a child, or torment the neighbors’ pets. I didn’t get in fights, or enjoy hurting other kids. I wasn’t even aware it was a kink of mine until a lover that year in college asked me to spank him while we were….hm. Well, I’m sure you get the picture.”

Sometimes it surprises Clint how modest Phil is about the more explicit details of sex. He’s got no modesty at ALL when he’s doing it, that’s for sure, but he tends to go a little red at the ears and use euphemisms when he talks about intimate things outside the bedroom. Or, you know, whatever room he’s fucking Clint in. There’s a brief round of nonmalicious teasing at Phil’s comments, but it dies down quickly when Darcy yells that she wants to hear the rest and they should shut the hell up. Everybody loves Darcy. She kind of doesn’t let you do anything else. Besides, she drives Fury crazy and you just can’t help but love THAT.

“Pipe down,” she says, pointing around the room and glaring severely. “And you,” she turns back to Phil. “Go on.”  Phil looks at her in amazement.

“Have you ever considered becoming a handler, Ms. Lewis?” he asks. “I’ve never seen anyone mange to quiet this lot down so quickly.”

“Hey yeah, that’d be cool,” she says brightly, then narrows her eyes at him. “Don’t change the subject!”

“Heaven forfend,” murmurs Phil. “All right. I obliged the young man, and found it to be….stimulating. To say the least. I joined the gay leather community and started soaking up everything I could learn like a sponge. I’m still not sure I can adequately explain it. It just fit, like finding the right key for a lock and turning it. There’s not anything in me that enjoys hurting people just for the sake of hurting them, or doing so against their will. Even pretend nonconsensual scenes have to be pretty carefully planned out for me. That may seem like a bit of a contradiction since I almost never ask Clint if he wants whatever I’m getting ready to do to him, but it’s not really.”

“A collar is a blanket consent clause,” says Clint simply.

“And he can revoke it at any time, and has the ability to stop whatever’s happening,” continues Phil. “That part’s important, being safe about it. I suppose there’s something in me that is attracted to….restrained violence? Perhaps? To render someone helpless under my hand, to turn them into a wrecked mess of nerves and emotion? That’s a heady feeling. Then to build them back up into the person they were before feeds my needs to take care. I’ve never been able to perfectly explain why I enjoy causing pain. I can give you some of the reasons.  It is a controlled outlet for frustration and anger, which allows me to retain my composure in the face of difficult circumstances.”

“Difficult circumstances?” chuckles Bruce. “That’s one way of describing a handler’s job!”

“Some circumstances are more difficult than others,” agrees Phil, staring straight at Clint while he says it. Clint can’t really account for the hard clench of lust in his belly at the way Phil’s looking at him. “There’s an aspect of it that I think comes from the part of our genetic makeup that is still living in caves. We sublimate our baser urges most of the time. But if we’re honest, there is still something in many people that wants to conquer, to fight for the right to hold what they have, to meet violence with violence and find it good. I think it makes me a happier person NOT to sublimate those urges all the time. I don’t need to get into contests of ego, because mine is more perfectly satisfied by the activities I enjoy in pursuing this lifestyle than it would be by butting heads with another suit over who has seniority or yelling at someone in rush hour traffic for cutting me off.”

“Flog your partner,” snickers Tony. “It’s great therapy!”

“It works on _you,_ ” says Pepper pointedly. Tony, surprisingly, subsides.

“Part of it,” continues Phil as though neither of them has spoken, “is that the lifestyle is a great deal more openly accepted in the gay community than it is in the mainstream. Most gay people are already open minded just as a result of who they are. There’s not a lot of finger pointing among us. As long as everybody involved is happy, it’s okay. I think there tends to be (and I’m by no means making a blanket statement here) a higher incidence of BDSM among gay men than straight men, because it seems to me that when two men are in a relationship, the very existence of that much testosterone probably enhances that cave man mentality that makes us want to bash our lovers over the head and drag them off to our caves and have our way with them.”

“Clint,” says Natasha with a wicked smile. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“I’ve got one for you,” he replies. “Guess which one?” He shows her.

“Gonna pay for that attitude later,” she purrs, and he sincerely hopes so.

“There’s also a large aspect of it that I expect won’t satisfy you, Darcy,” says Phil, ignoring them. “There isn’t always a concrete reason for liking a thing. During the phase in which I was learning about my sexuality, I met people who liked pain, so I liked giving it to them because at that point I liked pretty much everything about gay sex. And truthfully, can anyone explain everything that arouses them? Why does one person find it erotic to be kissed on the neck while another one likes having their….oh, I don’t know...their toes sucked? If I bite Clint on his shoulder or the back of his neck, he drops like a rock and I can do anything I want to him then. I had a lover years ago who hated having his neck touched. Sometimes a thing simply is. I’m wired this way. If you were hoping for some kind of sordid tale that made me the way I am, I’m afraid I’ve disappointed you.”

“No you didn’t,” says Darcy. “I just wanted to get a peek at what goes on inside that perfectly groomed head of yours. You’re kind of an enigma to a lotta people, Phil. Well, you are now that we know what you’re doing behind closed doors, anyway. Thanks for being a good sport.”

 

The gathering splits up after that, everyone finding things to amuse themselves with as befits their mindset. Unsurprisingly, the topic of conversation has put Jane and Thor as well as Pepper and Tony in the mindset that makes them vanish pretty damn quickly. Clint’s vaguely aware of Darcy haranguing Bruce and Steve into playing World of Warcraft with her, but he’s only got eyes for Natasha and Phil. Phil has pulled Tash aside and is murmuring in her ear while she glances at Clint out of the corners of her eyes and her lips curve into a slow, nasty smile that does a number on his libido.

“Do you wanna play too Clint?” calls Darcy. “You can set up a free account!”

He glances over to where she’s showing Steve how to create a character. Bruce is setting up the big screen to function as a monitor.

“I have an account,” he admits. “Level 40 hunter. But no thanks. I have a feeling my dance card is full for the evening.”

“Oh, it is,” murmurs Phil in his left ear.

“Really, really full,” hisses Tasha in his right ear.

Clint’s eyes roll back into his skull and he tries to muffle a whimper. He doesn’t even register the goodbyes as Phil and Tasha lead him out of the room. By the time they get to the fifth floor and his quarters, Clint’s barely coherent. They’ve been telling him the whole way what he has to look forward to, and there’s not any blood left in his brain. It’s all fled south and pooled in his dick, which now threatens to split the seam of his jeans.

“Ohh little boy,” Phil had murmured against the skin of his neck as they’d walked him down the hall. “You’re going to have such a night.”

“We’re going to fuck you UP, Clint,” Tasha had whispered viciously. “You’re going to beg for more. You’re going to beg us to stop. But we won’t.”

“Jesus,” he’d gasped, stumbling a little.

“We’ll both spank you at the same time, Clint. We’ve got _plans.”_

“Maybe I’ll whip you while you lick Natasha’s clit and I won’t stop until you make her come as many times as she wants.”

“Can you come and cry at the same time, Clint?”

“Oh, he can. Can’t you, darling boy?”

“I don’t know how you stand it, Clint. This man is just _sick._ You’re gonna get to do some new stuff tonight. Wonder if you’ll like it?”

He fumbles the lock open and then all sort of collapse through the door. Phil hauls Clint up against the front of his body, getting him in a neck lock. He can feel Coulson’s cock pressing against his ass, and it makes him writhe eagerly while Tasha presses herself languidly against the front of his body, kissing him deep and messy and dirty. He groans into her mouth and rolls his hips against her. Phil growls warningly at him and Clint subsides, whimpering a little with the urge to move, and he shivers while Tash licks her way into his mouth, then down his jawline to his throat and starts to tug at his shirt and slip her fingers inside the waistband of his jeans. She tears his shirt from his body and he thinks fleetingly that he’s glad it wasn’t one he’s very attached to. Although with what’s going on, he probably wouldn’t have mourned the loss too much. Her busy hands unbutton his fly and tug teasingly at his zipper. He watches her, his mouth open and his breath coming light and fast. Phil grinds his cock into Clint’s backside and he lets his eyelids flutter closed while he stops breathing for a second. Then Tasha’s pulling his pants over his hips and down his legs, and he toes off his shoes and lifts each foot when she taps his calves so she can pull them off and toss them away.

“I don’t know why it ever surprises me that you’re commando,” she says, huffing a little laugh against his thigh while her fingers trace his dick and he bites his lip.

“I think he’s given up underwear for lent,” murmurs Phil.

“It’s….ohgod….easier for me to be….ready for you….” Clint pants, meaning either of them, or both. They move into the living room, though afterwards he’s not really sure how, but they steer him and he’s already so gone it doesn’t matter how it’s managed. Natasha leaves them for a minute, stalking into the bedroom. She’s doing what Clint calls her fuck me walk, all trampy and slinking like some deadly exotic cat. Of course, Tasha’s fuck me walk is almost exactly like her I’m killing you now walk. She’s sheds her shirt as she goes, dropping it casually behind her. He watches her go, saliva pooling in his mouth, until Phil gets his attention by the expedient method of sitting on the couch and dumping Clint over his lap.

Oh fuck, he thinks, his head spinning. Phil has talked about doing this, taking Clint over his knee and spanking him like this, but he hasn’t done it yet. He isn’t sure why. Circumstances, he guesses. The threat though ,has always made him go weak in the knees. He doesn’t know why, but it just has. Phil’s left arm holds Clint steady while his right hand traces gentle circles on the younger man’s back and his upturned ass. Clint sighs and lifts his hips a little, receiving a sharp spank on the back of his leg and whispering, “Thank you, Master.”

Phil chuckles and starts to spank him. He’s not hitting Clint very hard, and he’s cupping his palm so that it only stings. He’s casual about it, not in any hurry, and Clint whines a bit through his nose, hoping that expresses his desire for Phil to spank a LOT harder. Phil chuckles some more, but does not oblige.

“Starting without me?” purrs Tasha’s voice, and Clint lifts his head to look to the bedroom doorway where she stands. She’s managed to shed her pants too, while she’s been gone, and lingers there, hipshot and sultry, in just her bra and panties, which are both bright candy red. She has a bag in her hand, one which is suspiciously lumpy and out of which several interesting handles protrude.

“Just getting a little warm-up out of the way,” says Phil, amused.

“Pshyeah, like he needs that,” scoffs Tasha, strolling into the room and plopping the bag down on the couch.

“He’s getting it tonight,” says Phil serenely, and starts to spank Clint just a little harder. Clint bites his lip and tries really hard to be still. Jesus. Fuck. It’s awesome, it’s so hot he could die, but SHIT, it’s not enough. He lays his forehead against the seat of the sofa and whimpers softly, then yelps a little in surprise when Tasha makes a fist in the hair on top of his head and yanks it back. Eyes watering, he looks into her face as she stares at him, fascinated and a little mean.

“God, Clint,” she whispers. “this is going to be so fucking hot.” She leans in and kisses him, biting at his bottom lip and scraping his tongue with her teeth. He knows he’s making muffled needful sounds into her mouth but he can’t help it. It’s been so long since they both played him together, and he can hardly stand it. He wants to do everything all at once.

Suddenly Tasha stands up and walks around behind him. Phil stops spanking him, and he bites his lip so he won’t protest. Phil adjusts Clint’s position a little and reaches over his head for the bag. They start to rifle through it together, behind him so he can’t see what’s happening.

“You’re very mean people,” he grumbles under his breath. The resulting vicious smack of something smooth and heavy against the back of his right thigh makes him cry out in pain. God, it’s perfect.

“Shut up, Clint,” says Natasha distractedly. He does. He’s found it’s wise to listen when the Black Widow tells you to do something. And she’s very much in Black Widow mode tonight. Her voice is a little rougher, and the Russian is coming through in her diction. It does that when she’s very intensely focused on something. While it’s awesome that he’s the something, he also really doesn’t want to irritate her. There is more of the bag sorting then, and the occasional comment from one of them along the lines of, “That one, you think?’ and , “Oh yeah, I like that, use that,” and, “Wow, he’s not going to like that!” They’re driving him nuts, and he’s pretty sure they’re doing it on purpose. Tasha never sounds this smug unless she’s being a bitch intentionally and enjoying the shit out of it. Eventually, and not soon enough for the waiting archer, they finish.

“Clint,” says Phil softly.

“Yes Sir?”

“I want you to straighten your legs behind you and put your toes on the floor.” Phil moves forward on the couch a little so that Clint can manage this. It feels a little precarious, but Phil steadies him. “No, farther apart than that. Good boy. Now, you’re not to move, love, can you do that for me?”

“I’ll try, Master,” says Clint honestly. He doesn’t know what they’re going to do to him, though he’s pretty sure it’s going to be awesome, and he tries not to make promises he isn’t positive he can keep.

“I know you will. There’s something else I want you to do for me.”

“Yes Sir?”

“I want you to be quiet.”

Oh Jesus. Clint swallows hard, because he’s really not sure he can manage that. He’s a mouthy shit and he knows it, and he also knows both his lovers really like that about him. Not only that, but he really never makes much of an effort to hide his pain or lust or excitement. He is, essentially NEVER quiet.

“You’re not going to get in trouble if you can’t,” says Phil gently. “I just want to….challenge you a little. Partly because you’re so wonderfully obedient and it pleases me very  much, but partly because I know it will be hard for you and I am a big enough man to admit I like to watch you struggle.”

 _Fuck,_ mouths Clint silently.

“Not only that,” continues Phil, and there is clearly some sadistic amusement in his voice, “but you use vocalization to help you handle pain, and it works very well for you. As long as you can whimper and yell and beg and cry, you have so far been able to take anything I can throw at you. I want to see how you handle it when you don’t have that coping mechanism. You’re going to try very hard for me, aren’t you, beautiful boy?”

“Yes Master,” whimpers Clint. Natasha laughs, her deep throaty one that says she is thinking really disgusting things that he’s pretty sure he’s going to love.

“Ready?” asks Phil softly, petting the back of his head gently. Clint takes a shaky breath and nods. He feels something cool and flat and oval-ish and heavy press against his ass and rub in a circle for a few seconds. He’s not sure what it is, a paddle of some kind, or maybe a hairbrush, because it isn’t very big. He doesn’t have to wait long.

There’s a sort of thick, meaty sound to the thwack of it when Phil brings it down sharply on his left asscheek. He sucks in his breath and presses his lips together. It isn’t that Clint can’t handle pain. He can. A lot of it, when he has to. Broken bones, physical torture, assorted on-the-job injuries are all pretty commonplace to a guy like him. Maybe it’s the stoicism with which he faces these things that makes him revel so in voicing himself otherwise. He folds his arms and lays his head down on them, closing his eyes and forcing himself to breathe deeply and evenly. He can do this. Phil wants him to. His eyes fly open when a sharp bite high on his left thigh follows almost instantly after the next blow from the hairbrush. He realizes that’s what it is because Phil gently rubs the bristles against his skin between spanks. Phil’s only got two arms, and one of them is locked around Clint’s waist while the other is blistering his ass with the brush. It’s Natasha who is peppering the backs and insides of his thighs with what feels like a riding crop. God. Shit. He’s in so much trouble. It’s fanfuckingtastic,  and though it’s mostly okay for right now, he can tell it’s going to get really intense really fast.

It does. Oh fuck, it does. It’s not long at all before his backside is on fire and each new heavy crack of the hairbrush feels like it’s going to peel his skin off. The riding crop’s tip bites like hornet stings on his legs. He’s shaking, his whole body suffused with a fine tremble in his muscles as his body struggles against its instinct to squirm, to writhe in pain and try to get away, to make it _stop._ He doesn’t actually want it to stop. What he wants is to fucking SAY something! He bites his lip and hides his face in his arms, panting and trembling and trying to find the same cool empty space in his mind where he lives while he’s sitting feet or yards above the ground waiting for his shot. He can’t help that he flinches with every stroke, or the shaking, but he keeps his legs straight and his toes pressed against the floor, which elevates his ass a little so Phil has easy access to the tenderest place right on his sit-spots. He wants to yelp and cry out and whimper and give voice to his pain, to babble mindless filth and beg for mercy. It’s fucking hard not to. He’s growing abominably sore, and there are tears in his eyes when Phil puts the hairbrush down and picks up something else. It’s a paddle, larger than the brush in that it covers most of the surface of his ass. He senses rather than feels Tasha stand up from where she’s been kneeling between his legs. Something slender taps the inside of his leg and he shudders, gasping. It’s Phil’s slender rattan cane. He chokes back the plea he longs to utter. Phil’s fingers trail up his spine and he shudders, gasping.

“How’s he holding up?” asks Tasha curiously. It’s not that she sounds concerned. Just interested. Bitch. God, he loves her.

“It’s so hard for you, isn’t it little boy?” asks Phil softly. Clint nods, but he lays his head back down and waits as patiently as he can. “Such a good boy,” muses Phil, carding his fingertips through Clint’s hair. He chokes on his moan and it hurts something inside him. This is one of the most wrenching things he’s ever done. There’s no warning before the larger round paddle cracks down on his heated flesh and the cane nips hard at the inside of his right thigh. He gulps and grits his teeth. Ohgod, he thinks, dazed and almost sick with the need to move, to SAY something, even to just let himself whimper and cry out when it hurts. Oh, it hurts. It’s so awesome, and he’s being spanked like a bad little boy and FUCK he wants to kick his feet and wriggle and promise to be good but he CAN’T and it’s awful! To have both of them working him over at the same time is heady, but it’s confusing too. He wants, so badly, to do well, to impress them, to show them that he can do this, can suffer for them in silence as Phil has asked, can hold his body still to accept the pain they want him to have. He doesn’t want to fail. Tears fill his eyes and he chokes on a sob. They roll silently down his face while Phil paddles him hard and the cane’s brutal kiss scalds the soft skin on the insides of his trembling legs. He crams his forearm into his mouth and bites down. He doesn’t know if it’s allowed, but he shift his hips just a little, lifting them towards the blows from the paddle, pleading with the anguish of his body. Please, oh please Master, isn’t it enough?

“Natasha,” says Phil gently, letting the paddle rest against Clint’s burning ass.

“I want to break him,” says Tasha mulishly, and snaps the cane down across the backs of both his thighs.

“Why?” asks Phil curiously. Clint wants to know too, though he’s incapable of saying so. He’s locked inside this torment, imprisoned by a desire to please them that is so strong it overrides his desperate need to make some kind of noise. He’s trapped there, incapable of speech, knowing he will lie here and let them shred him if they want to. Oh, he hopes they don’t want to. Please, Phil, his mind shrieks. Listen. I’m trying so hard. Please.

“Because you  get to all the time. I almost never see him come apart.”

“Go look at his face and then if you still want to, you can,” says Phil, and Clint feels her step over his leg and move up the sofa, then kneel by his head. She takes hold of his hair again and hauls his head up so she can look him in the eyes. His vision is blurred by tears so he can’t see her expression, but he can hear her fine.

“Shit,” she whispers. “Clint….”

“Well?” asks Phil.

“Jesus, Phil. Did you know it was doing this to him?” demands Tasha angrily. She lets go of his hair and her fingers cup his chin, her thumb brushing gently at the tears staining his cheek. He muffles a sob at the small tenderness, so unusual coming from her.

“Yes,” says Coulson quietly.

“Why? Look at him! He’s….Jesus, he’s not having fun,” she rages.

“Is he not?” asks Phil.

“Clint?” she asks. Slowly, he shakes his head, but in the middle of the negative response he pauses, looking at her, and then slowly, he nods.

“I don’t understand,” she says flatly.

“Clint,” says Phil gently, his hand resting on the back of the archer’s neck. “you don’t have to be quiet anymore. You did so well, baby, I am so damn proud of you.”

Clint lets out a huge, shuddering sob and lets himself just cry for a minute. Tasha, glaring at Phil, leans in to kiss him, and that’s so gorgeous he almost can’t stand it, kissing her back like he needs her to keep breathing, tasting his tears on their lips. His cock, cradled between Phil’s thighs, is throbbing at him insistently.

“Can you tell her how you feel?” asks Phil, his other hand now moving to trail fingertips over punished skin, making Clint whimper, and oh, it’s glorious.

“Ahh,” he gasps, “Oh _fuck_ , Sir, maybe not if you keep doing that!” Phil’s response is to change over to fingernails, and Clint hisses and bucks a little. “Shit! Oh…I…I don’t know how to explain it, Sir. I…it was awful. I wanted to say something, to make even one sound, so bad. But I _couldn’t.”_

“No,” agrees Phil. “You couldn’t.”

“Because you told him not to,” says Tasha, still looking a little pissed, but the way Clint’s been kissing her back seems to be helping.

“No,” says Phil. “Or, well…not exactly. Being quiet because I asked him to was the reason at first. He tries so hard to do what I ask, don’t you, darling boy?”

“Yes,” murmurs Clint.

“Most of the time, what I ask of him is easy,” continues Phil, who doesn’t stop tormenting Clint’s beaten ass. Clint whines and squirms, and yelps when Phil slaps his ass sharply with his hand. “Tell me, Natasha, of all the people in Clint’s life, who is the hardest on him?”

Tasha looks up at Phil warily, and Clint can see her wondering if it’s a trick question. Phil’s as enigmatic as always, so Tasha answers him with what she knows to be true, though Clint can tell she doesn’t trust Phil’s motives here.

“He is,” she says shortly.

“Quite correct,” says Phil, and he sounds like he’s smiling.

“It,” pants Clint, leaning his head against Tasha’s neck and whispering it to her skin, making her shiver, “I…fuck, I’m messed up. Okay. If everything Phil asks me to do is what I….hng….want anyway….or is easy…” He pauses, trying to just breathe, because the silence had been suffocating.

“I get it,” says Tasha suddenly. “If he doesn’t make it hard for you, test you sometimes with something that you don’t like, that you have to struggle with, you’re going to start to doubt yourself.” He nods gratefully and she thumps him gently on the head. “Dumbass.” Clint bites the side of her neck. Released from the prison in his mind, he’s feeling pretty proud of himself right about now. “But what did you mean when you said he _couldn’t_ talk?” she asks, pinching Clint’s earlobe between two fingernails and making him yelp again.

“Bitch,” he says cheerfully. ”He meant I did it. I…passed the test, I guess? Once I did, it was like I really couldn’t say anything. I mean I was like locked inside my own head?”

Tasha, of all people, is perfectly equipped to understand this statement, for all that it might seem bewildering. They know plenty about conditioning, the two of them, and the power of their own minds to either fuck them up or get them through impossible things.

“You’re okay?” she asks him, as gently as she ever says anything. There is….more of it….than there used to be. He dares to believe it is because of him, and what they have made together.

“I’m okay,” he says firmly. She doesn’t ask if he’s sure. He wonders if anybody else in the world is fortunate enough to have not one but two people with whom they share an unshakable trust. Such is the truth between the three of them that if one of them walked in on him naked in a bed with another person (or vice-versa) they wouldn’t jump to conclusions (if Clint wasn’t positive of that before Phil’s arrival in New York, his reaction to Clint dirty dancing with Thor removed the last vestiges of doubt). They have killed for each other, all three of them, and nearly died for each other, except Phil, who more literally had done so. Once you save a person’s life a certain number of times, the question of trust becomes a little moot.

“Are you done here, Clint?” asks Phil, his hand still, and resting at the small of Clint’s back. Clint lifts up a little to look over his shoulder at the older man.

“No?” he says, making it a question. “I just didn’t think I got a choice,” he admits.

“You were so good, you get to make this one,” smiles Phil. His blue eyes are a little soft. To see the expression on his face, you’d never know his erection was poking Clint pretty insistently in the ribs.

“Thank you, Sir. Then….I’d…will you…” he gets frustrated with himself because he knows what he wants but it doesn’t feel right to ask for it, because part of the draw of it is that it’s DONE too him, not that he requests it. Tasha lifts one eyebrow at his unaccustomed hesitation. Clint’s not usually reticent about saying what he wants. He looks at her a little desperately.

“This?” she says to Phil, “The over your lap spanking? It’s a….thing….of his. He doesn’t want to ask you for it, because bad little boys just get spanked, they don’t choose it.”

“And you want to experience it the way you wanted it to be?” asks Phil affectionately. Clint nods wordlessly, because he feels a little silly for not being able to say it himself. Maybe when you want a thing kind of badly, it’s not quite the same if you have to beg for it, sometimes. “All right. Then if this is what you want, you’re going to have to go so far as to answer a few questions, love.”

“Yes Sir,” says Clint in a muffled voice, because his face is buried in Tasha’s neck again and she’s idly scratching the top of his head with her fingernails.

“When I spank you like this, what do I use?”

“Oh,” says Clint, a little breathless. “Um. The…the hairbrush. Or…a wooden spoon.”

“Mm,” hums Phil with interest. “You know what we used the wooden spoon for last time?”

“I….yes Sir,” sighs the younger man, squirming again.

“Do I use it for that?”

Clint groans softly.

“A little,” he whispers.

“Nice. Natasha, please be so kind as to fetch me a wooden spoon from Clint’s kitchen.” She pulls away from Clint, who whines a little, and goes. Oh God, he’s an idiot. His asshole clenches a little in terrified anticipation. “What about your legs, baby boy? Do I spank you there too?”

“Yes Sir,” breathes Clint helplessly. His brain’s doing the spinning thing again. Just then, Tash returns with the spoon. He gulps a little when she hands it to Phil, then sits crosslegged on the floor in front of Clint’s face. Phil eases back into the sofa so that Clint’s upper body and legs are once more draped across his lap and resting on the cushions. He wont’ fall off now if Phil doesn’t hold him in place. Tash rests an elbow on the couch and leans her hand on it.

“I’m gonna watch,” she tells him . “Gonna watch your face while he does it. Are you gonna cry?” she asks curiously.

“Yeah,” he admits. “Probably a lot.” He realizes suddenly that the last time she’d seen him turned into a wreck it was before Vespucci and had been a pretty shitty situation for her. And the time before _that_ it had been because she’d been the one wrecking him. They haven’t talked about either situation a lot, because they’re not the sorts of people who need to pester things to death. He doesn’t have any idea how she feels about this. He’s pretty sure she’s not the kind of woman who thinks it makes him weak, but he’s never heard her say. He wonders if that should make him nervous. It kind of does.

“That’s so cool,” she says. “Did you know? Your eyes are like diamonds when you cry. It’s fucking beautiful.” Well. Okay then.

“Enough chatter, children,” says Phil with mock-sternness. “This naughty little boy needs his spanking.”

Clint suddenly realizes that although it’s only now that in his mind this scenario is beginning, is shaping into something he wants, no, craves…that he hasn’t considered properly how sore he already is. Well _fuck._

Wooden spoons are not heavy implements. When your naked ass and legs are already almost blistered, you’re not able to really appreciate that fact. Clint’s yelping and writhing in pain from the very first stroke. It’s intense, and hot, and every fucking stroke goes straight to where his dick rubs against Phil’s leg (Jesus, he hopes he doesn’t come like this), and it’s somehow freeing, which is probably really weird. He’s not regressed into an ageplay sort of thing, not really, but at the same time he feels like a bad little boy being punished because somebody loves him enough to do it. Because his mindset is a little strange, and because of the position he’s in and how it makes him feel, and because shit, this hurts, he reaches back with his left hand to try to cover his ass.

“Natasha,” growls Phil, “hold his hands, please.”

Tasha grabs his arms, and he lets her. She could hurt him to make him comply, but that’s not what this is about. She locks her hands around his wrists and holds tightly, watching his face with open fascination. The expression on her face captures him, and he stares back, not bothering to hide the pained expression he knows chases across his face with every stinging smack of the spoon.

“Hurtssssss,” he whispers, letting the word hiss through his teeth on a long exhale.

“I can tell,” she whispers back, and kisses him again. He whimpers and keens into her mouth as Phil peppers his ass and the back of his legs with the spoon while he allows himself the outrageous luxury of kicking and bucking against Phil’s hold around his waist. It’s _insane_ what this does to him, like she’s drinking down his pain and swallowing him whole, like everything he’s feeling is connected to her where their mouths are joined. He loses all track of time while she kisses him, but at the same time remains excruciatingly aware of the pain of every cruel bite of the wood against his skin. When she finally breaks the kiss and pulls back , they are both breathless, staring as though transfixed into each other’s eyes.

“Fuck,” he gasps feelingly.

“God. Clint,” she breathes.

Clint feels the vibration of an almost subterranean growl in Phil’s body because he’s not immune to the spell either.

“Talk to me,” whispers Tasha. “I want to hear you tell me how it feels, Clint. I want to hear that filthy mouth.”

“Tash,” he whimpers. “God. Oh fuck, it hurts. S… _shit_ ….so much.” He chokes back a small sob. He’s gonna lose it soon, going to start to cry, and when he does, it’s going to be hard to stop, and he really doesn’t think Phil’s gonna cut him any slack. “Ohh Tasha, please… _fuckfuck…._ please make it stop.”

“No,” she whispers. He bites his lip and shudders. Her pupils are blown, her lips parted slightly. She’s as aroused as he’s ever seen her.

“Ohgod,” he begs, his voice barely more than a breath ghosting over her lips, their faces close enough to touch but not quite doing it. “I….I can’t. ‘S too much. Shit. Jesus, fuckin’ hurts so bad. I’m gonna cry, Tasha, gonna…. _ungh_ ….can’t help it. I’m so sorry. I’ll be good, I promise. Ohhh please, Sir. Please. Tash. No more, oh…oh… _please._ It hurts. It hurts. Jesus. Shit. God, I’m so fuckin’ hard, wanna fuck you Tasha, be inside you. Ohfuckfuck. Kiss me, kiss me again. Please…I….”

She does, muffling his chanting voice and he makes a wounded noise in the back of his throat, licking into her mouth and trying to mutter mindless filth at the same time. It doesn’t work very well, but she doesn’t seem to mind. He notices belatedly that Phil has sort of paused in his ministrations, fascinated by their byplay. Unfortunately for Clint’s state of mind, he remembers pretty soon and makes up for his loss of focus by spanking even harder, focusing his attentions on the backs of the archer’s legs, pushing his thighs apart and oh bloody buggering hell (there’s that phrase again but fuck if it’s not apropos in this case) the sharp snap of the spoon’s back on the soft skin between his legs makes him cry out at last, pushed past whimpers and moans and gasps. Phil hums softly to himself at the sound and spanks over and over on the same FUCKING spot until Clint is pleading frantically for him to stop. Tasha, at this point, is leaning back on one hand and staring raptly at his face while her right hand slides inside her panties and she slowly rubs her clit, arching her hips a little and nibbling at her bottom lip. The pain builds, ramping up until Clint can’t hold out anymore, it’s too much, and the tears he’s been fighting (because honestly? He wants to drag this out at along as possible) spill over. Tasha leans forward, quick as a cat, and her index finger catches one shimmering drop. She puts her finger to her lips and licks the moisture off. He groans and lets out a little sob. He’s not so far gone that he’s bawling or anything, he’s just too wrecked not to cry now, a little. Phil pauses, and Clint sucks in a gulping breath.

“Natasha,” says Phil, and his voice sounds rough and deeper than usual. “Why don’t you make our boy do that?”

Clint nods his head eagerly because all of a sudden he gets a clear flash of what Phil’s suggesting and can’t think of anything on earth hotter than going down on his girlfriend while his boyfriend spanks him raw. The logistics take about 30 seconds to work out. Then Tasha’s in front of him on the sofa, her elbows on the arm of it, one leg slung up over the back of the couch, the other on the floor, the red panties flung somewhere that nobody notices. Phil has shoved Clint forwards a little over his lap so most of his upper body is on the sofa and he can wrap his hands around Tasha’s thighs and bury his face between them. This also serves to elevate his ass a little more, which is convenient for Phil’s purpose. As the tip of his tongue hungrily licks Tasha’s pussy open, he feels Phil’s fingers trail between his ass cheeks. Using his thumb and forefinger, Phil spreads Clint open. The feel of cool air on his hole makes him flinch a little. He’s so into how good Tasha tastes and the rough little moan of pleasure his tongue wrings from her that at first it doesn’t occur to him what Phil’s doing. The sharp stabbing burn of the spoon against his exposed hole makes him flinch and yelp in shock and pain. This distracts his tongue entirely and he lays his forehead against Tasha’s belly for a few seconds, panting.

“Clint,” purrs Phil. “You’re going to want to try very hard to make Natasha come. Do you know why?”

Clint’s pretty sure he does.

“Y…. _ungh…._ guh…you’re gonna do that til she does?” he chokes. Phil, goddamn his black soul, laughs.

“Got it in one, little boy. Better put that tongue to work. This is going to hurt.”

He does his best. He really does. He tells his brain really firmly that he’s going to lick Tasha’s clit so fast, so good, cause he knows exactly how she likes it, and he won’t pause no matter how bad it stings, and he knows damn well he can make her come inside about three minutes so he’s go….

Yeah. That lasts about as long as it takes Phil to pop the spoon against his clenched hole three times, very fast. Then he realizes he hasn’t accounted for the howling. Tasha doesn’t seem to mind in the slightest, groaning throatily whether his tonguing her clit or yowling in shocked agony or gasping out sobs against her inner thigh. His asshole feels like it’s on fire. Phil isn’t as mean about it as he could be, only spanking about every fifteen seconds or so, but he doesn’t back off, and he doesn’t stop. In a few minutes Clint’s crying pretty hard. He longs to beg Phil for mercy, but to do that he’ll have to stop trying to make Tasha come, and he knows damn well that once Phil’s given his word, he won’t go back on it. Clint can make Tash come, or he can use his safeword. Those are the only things that will stop what feels like a nest full of giant mutant hornets from a black hole stabbing his hole with their monster stingers.

“Fuck, Phil,” pants Natasha, arching to press her pussy against Clint’s mouth. “You’re a sick fuck, you know that?”

“You have a dirty mouth, did you know _that?_ ” asks Phil conversationally, pressing Clint’s cheeks open wider and bringing the spoon down with a heavy splat. Clint howls in pain and has to stop, _again_ , to remember how to breathe. He doesn’t take long, but he can’t help it. His nose is clogged with snot from his tears and it’s hard to breathe while he’s trying to cry and keep his tongue on Tasha’s clit at the same time. He lets go of one of her thighs and brings his arm down so he can shove two fingers into her sopping pussy. She throws her head back and groans, one of her hands coming up to thread through Clint’s hair. She pets him for a minute, then makes a fist and presses his face against her crotch. Clint’s cock throbs hard and his toes curl as at that same moment, Phil brings the spoon down again.

Another minute later and Clint can’t help it. He turns his head to the side, laying his cheek on Tasha’s thigh, and he sobs, pleading with Phil.

“Oh please, Sir, please….it hurts. It hurts so much….I can’t Sir, please PLEASE no more. I’ll be so good. I pro…promise. OWWW. Ohgod. Please no please no please. My hole hurts so bad Master, please stop.”

“Clint,” snarls Phil, “If your tongue is not back where it’s supposed to be in three seconds, I’m going to switch to the belt.”

This is a pretty effective threat. The belt hurts a LOT worse.

“You’re also going to want to hurry,” adds Coulson cheerfully, “because I’m fucking you tonight no matter how long this takes.”

That one’s even more effective. This time Clint keeps his tongue on his lover’s clit no matter how much the spanking hurts him. And oh, it does. He chokes back his sobbing and his tears mingle with the sweet wetness of Tasha’s cunt. Knowing that he’s getting fucked after the spanking has two effects on him at the same time. It makes him frantic to make Tash come in a hurry because he knows from experience how much he’s going to scream when Phil’s cock forces his swollen, raw hole open. It also makes his dick grow impossibly harder and his eyes roll back in his head because every time he thinks Phil turns him on as much as it’s humanly possible for him to be turned on, Phil cranks it up another notch. He doesn’t have a clue how the wanting can keep growing, but it does. He presses his fingers hard into her, grinding his knuckles into her open pussy and flickering his tongue against her clit, his mouth open so his gasping sobs can escape. Every time his brain says, “this is the hottest fucking thing I have ever done,” Phil proves him wrong. Just at this moment, this tops that chart. And then Tasha’s body goes rigid and her pelvis rocks up against his mouth and her hand in his hair convulses, and he feels the walls of her pussy ripple and clench down on him and her breath sobs in her chest while she curses in Russian, shaken by her orgasm. Clint rides it out with his mouth and his fingers; then when she is still, he lays his wet, tear-streaked cheek against her thigh, which trembles slightly from the power of her body’s pleasure. He hears the spoon hit the floor with a small thud, and cries softly in relief. Phil’s finger strokes lightly across his raw hole and he sobs once, raggedly, pleadingly. This, of course, does not deter Phil in the slightest.  The archer is too wrung out to do more than whine and squirm a little while Phil torments him. He’s being mean, but not in a way Clint doesn’t just fucking love. He’s very gentle, using the barest of touches, stroking and soothing the younger  man’s swollen, sore entrance. He doesn’t even penetrate Clint with the tip of his finger, he’s only teasing carefully, but Clint’s hole is so sensitive and burning and painful that he can only softly beg Phil not to, and whimper and gasp. It’s insanely hot and Clint could just lie here all night if they let him, but he’s pretty sure that’s not going to happen. Phil’s fingertip stroking his abraded flesh keeps it firmly in Clint’s mind that he’s getting fucked in a little bit, so his cock stays rock hard and his need prods insistently at the base of his spine and his brain. Sometimes it’s a little like Clint has conversations with himself in his own mind.

Wanna come, wanna fuck, come on Phil, do it, do me, I want you to

Are you crazy? Your asshole’s so sore it’s going to be hell when he shoves that cock in you. What’s the rush?

I don’t know. I don’t care. I want it.

Idiot.

Still don’t care. Wanna fuck Tasha too, maybe they’ll let me.

Seriously? You’re going to scream when he fucks you, you know that

Yeah, I know. It’s awesome.

Clint’s a hopeless cause. Utterly doomed. He’s never been so happy in his life. It matters to him exactly not at all that almost everybody who could see inside his head would tell him that he needs help. He doesn’t need help. He’s GETTING what he needs. Fuck everybody who calls him damaged goods, mentally unstable, unhealthy. If he’s unstable, he’s the happiest headcase he’s ever heard of.

He honestly isn’t entirely aware of how they all mange to move to his bedroom. He’s high as a fucking kite. Thinks that if anybody could figure out how to bottle and sell endorphin rushes, illegal narcotics would take a serious hit. But they’re there, and everybody is blissfully, wonderfully naked and their skin on his is so perfect. He’s on his knees and Phil gently lifts Clint’s hands just above his shoulders and he hums a pleased sound as the leather cuffs of the bar are buckled around his wrists. Tasha’s in front of him, pressing her impossibly amazing body against his own, trapping his unflagging erection between their bodies. He groans and rocks his hips against hers. She kisses him, tiny little biting kisses, while she purrs at him like a filthy whore.

“Don’t come, Clint,” she breathes. “I’m gonna fuck myself on your cock in a little bit. You’re going to like that, aren’t you? I’m _so_ wet, so hot from your tongue, Clint. I’m going to make you feel so good.”

He moans wholehearted approval of this plan into her mouth. She laughs a little, the husky, throaty one that drips smut and goes straight to his dick every time. He knows the laugh was trained into her, but that when she does it for him, she means it. Phil is still behind him, making sure the positioning of his arms isn’t going to cause him any difficulties with circulation. He does this every time. Privately, Clint thinks it’s kind of adorable. He’s not thinking too clearly about Phil’s positioning behind him, because hey, naked hot chick plastered against his dick. The lubricated finger pushing into his asshole yanks him back into the moment like he’s been clotheslined. A strangled sound is torn from his throat and he buries his face in Tasha’s neck, biting down in her shoulder to keep from hollering his head off like a little kid.

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” he gasps sincerely. “ _Please,_ Sir!”

“Please what?” asks Phil musingly, pumping his finger in and out a couple of times before adding another. Tasha grabs Clint’s face in her two hands and plasters her mouth to his, swallowing his pained noises. This makes it impossible for Clint to answer Phil’s question, and the burn of his second finger’s friction against the throbbing ache of his beaten hole renders Clint speechless anyway. When Phil scissors his fingers, stretching the swollen membranes of Hawkeye’s asshole, the younger man mewls helplessly into Tasha’s kiss, hips pressing against her as if he can pull away from the cruel sting of Phil’s fingers. “Natasha,” the agent continues, as if Clint hasn’t spoken, “if you intend to have him…service you… I’d recommend you make it happen. He’s not going to be in much shape to do anything but beg in a minute.” Thereupon, he adds some more lube and a third finger. Clint’s toes curl and his body convulses in protest against the hurt of it. Tasha pulls away from their kiss, her eyes almost consumed with the black of her pupils, and turns her back on him. Clint whines in protest until she falls on hands and knees and backs up to him, her hand reaching back to grab his cock. Because his hands are restrained, he can’t do anything to help as she slowly guides him into her body, sliding down his dick until her ass presses against his pelvis, her pussy warm and wet and gripping his length like a glove. He closes his eyes and shudders, rocking his hips a little to move inside her. Phil’s fingers drag painfully out of his hole and are replaced by the nudge of his erection bumping against Clint’s burning hole. Clint’s really good with angles of approach, trajectories. His mind, though spinning, grasps the implications of what’s getting ready to happen instantly. Either Phil’s going to fuck himself into Clint and, with the force of his thrusts, fuck Clint’s cock into Natasha, or he’s going to make Clint do the work of both of them, which will thrust his cock into his girlfriend’s pussy and his asshole onto his Master’s cock. Either one is going to make his paddled anus feel like he’s getting reamed by a roll of sandpaper.

“Please, Sir,” he whispers, not really expecting it to do any good, “you spanked really hard. Ah…and my hole hurts really bad. Please…do you gotta, Phil?”

“Yes, baby boy, I have to,” murmurs Phil kindly, the tone in his voice completely belying the fact that he’s pushing his cock into his boys poor hurting asshole. Clint’s gasping moan ramps up almost to a scream when his hole is forced to open for Phil’s cock, rubbing cruelly. Clint’s pathetically grateful that he’s not required to voluntarily force his swollen asshole down Phil’s cock, that despite the pain of being fucked in his much too recently abused nether regions, being fucked is easier than having to do it to himself. Phil’s not gentle about it beyond his first careful breaching of Clint’s body, using the muscles of his back to shove Clint’s body forward with every thrust, which in turn shoves Clint’s cock into Natasha, who is whispering filth in Russian and rocking back against the archer’s stabbing thrusts. Clint finds himself practically suffocating under the agonizing pain in his ass and the agonizing pleasure on his cock. His brain isn’t able to choose between the two, so he’s drowning in both, whimpering and panting and mumbling incoherently. He retains enough mental acuity to speak when he feels his balls drawing tight and heat curling behind his spine.

“Oh,” he cries, his voice pained and frantic, “please, please may I come? I can’t….ohgod….can’t stop it. Jesus. Fuck. Please, Sir, please, I’m gonna come, say yes, oh god, oh please.”

Tasha and Phil utter nearly identical snarls of a dark and possessive “yes”, and the combined clenching flutter of Tasha’s wet heat surrounding him and the hard pulse of Phil inside him doesn’t push him over the edge so much as it hurtles him over it and into orbit. His howl as he comes is almost inhuman.

When Phil carefully unbuckles him from the suspended bar, Clint pretty much collapses bonelessly onto the bed, where his lovers surround him with the warm security of ther bodies and the sleepy certainty that he’s pleased them both. He thinks, as he squirms himself contentedly between their embraces, that in the end he doesn’t care what motivates Phil to do these things. They are perfect and marvelous and there is nothing Clint would have any other way. Despite whatever odd quirks in their brains that make them want these things, what really motivates all of them is love. Love which is strange and unconventional and twisted, but which is also home. Home, which he finds in their hearts and touches and in their arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't find Phil's explanation for why he gets off on hurting Clint satisfactory, I apologize, but such desires really are hard to explain. I simply can't buy Phil as the kind of Dom who is doing this because he was beaten up as a kid, or had an overbearing mother, or felt powerless growing up and wants to get a little of his own back. He's way too badass to have those kinds of issues, and way too comfortable with what he is, what he wants, and what Clint wants him to be. I have never loved the phrase "it is what it is," but sometimes that really is kind of true. Phil, in my world, does have a few reasons for what gets him off, but he also was just sort of born this way. For which Clint is very, very grateful.
> 
> I am glorifying the ideal of a poly relationship in this fic, but I hope no one will take the relationship between our three heroes as a shining example. Poly relationships take a fuckton of work on everybody's part and are fraught with a lot of peril. You have to be even more honest, forthcoming, compassionate and understanding than you do in a monogamous relationship. Every misunderstanding, hurt feeling, and flash of jealousy is three times worse than what can occur between two people. It's never a good idea to jump into the middle of an established relationship as a "third," because you're usually going to end up feeling like a third wheel a LOT. If polyamoury appeals to you, it's worth taking the time to be sure the people you're attracted to are capable of the kind of selflessness, trust, and communication as what happens between our trio.


	17. Part 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Clint and Natasha play, and Phil gets to witness Clint's other side. This chapter is even more shamelessly pornographic, with little redeeming value.
> 
> I wrote it purely because I don't want Tasha to feel left out, and because I felt like it was high time Phil got to watch Clint in a toppy headspace, to see how he liked it. He does.

Clint pads down the hall from the locker room to the dojo. He’s just put in an easy four miles, gotten his muscles loose and warm, and plans to finish up his workout by beating the crap out of the big bag for a while. He towels sweat off his face as he opens the door, and hears from the thwacking sounds in the room that someone has beat him to it. He pulls the towel away and his mouth spreads into a slow grin when he sees Natasha, clad in a sports bra and tight boy shorts, pounding the bag into submission. He’s suddenly not interested in sparring with a sack of sand anymore.

“What do you say we liven up both our days and smack each other around instead of that poor innocent thing?” he says softly. He knows she’s head him come in, that there is no way she hasn’t noticed the door opening behind her, and that since she hasn’t stopped kicking and punching to look over her shoulder, is likely already aware that it’s him. She does stop now, steadying the bag with her hands and glancing back at him archly, one brow cocked, her blue eyes sparkling.

“It’s always more fun to hit you than a sack of sand,” she replies, turning around and going immediately into a ready crouch. “You warm?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” he assures her, tossing the towel at the basket by the door. He doesn’t have to look to know it goes in. They eye each other for a few seconds, appreciating the view as much as sizing up an opponent. Tasha’s lean muscle and lush curves render her scant attire nearly pornographic. Clint can’t even remember at the moment where he left his shirt. He thinks he had one on this morning before he set out, but he’s taken it off somewhere along the line and is now wearing nothing but a soft pair of sweat pants that are loose enough for him to kick in, and which ride low on his hips, the hard ridge of muscle across his hip bones rising above the elastic, the golden skin of his abs and pecs sheened lightly with sweat. He doesn’t have a lot of chest hair, just a happy trail of dark blond leading from his belly button straight on down into his pants. He sees Tasha looking there, knows she likes to lick it, and feels his cock stir. Good thing he has to wear underwear to work out, or he’d be embarrassing himself here in a minute.

They’ve fought one another so many times that is has almost become a dance for them. Their bodies circle, come together, clash and release to do it again. They go full speed, and know each other’s moves so well that neither has to pull punches to prevent them from harming each other. Clint knows how much he has to arch his spine back to get his face to the end of Tasha’s reach so her knuckles won’t split his lip against his teeth. She knows to what degree she must angle her hips to make his foot glance off her belly rather than plow into her. The choreography of it is beautiful and deadly. Their awareness of one another is both instinctive, atavistic almost, and also quite sexual. It only takes them about thirty seconds of circling and feinting and connecting to realize how this is going to end. With them naked and gasping for breath while they fuck each other blind on the floor.

How they get there is generally through the expedient method of Natasha taking him down and claiming his body as her prize for besting him again. She’s meaner, more flexible, and better trained in hand-to-hand than he is. He never gives her the victory, he just never expects to be able to best her at this. They’ve been at it for about ten minutes, lost in the sound of fist and feet and flesh, the harsh sound of their breath, when he realizes something is different. He’s sure of it when he connects yet another kick with the back of her thigh, nearly unbalancing her. He’s holding his own. No, he’s not just holding his own. He’s going to beat her. He frowns, because Tasha has only let him take her down once, and what had happened next had been the most gut wrenching experience of his life. This doesn’t feel like that, though. He doesn’t think she’s letting him. Not the way she’s frowning. When she starts using her sex against him he _knows_ she’s not letting him win. His dick has been more than half hard since he walked in the door anyway, but when her holds and strikes turn sensual and when he gets her in a headlock and she presses her ass against his crotch and groans suggestively, it finishes the job.

“Bad girl,” he hisses in her ear while she squirms those perfect asscheeks against his cock. She gasps a little and manages to break his hold, spinning away and glaring at him, her cheat heaving.

“Bite me,” she snarls, though she is smiling.

“Where, baby?” he purrs.

“Fuck you, Barton,” she taunts, and her fantastic breasts heave and he knows she’s showing them off for him, counting on distracting him. He enjoys the sight, sure, but he keeps an eye on her hips too, and sees the move coming before she makes it. She goes to leg-sweep him and he hops over her foot, coming down behind her and using her forward momentum to force her over onto her face, following her down and pinning her to the mat.

“That’s the plan,” he growls softly, pressing his body’s weight into her, not letting up when she tries to thrash and squirm and grab him in some rude places. He laughs at her, softly. “Come on, Tash.”

She sighs. “Fine,” she grumbles, though she doesn’t actually sound pissed. A little breathless. A lot surprised, but not pissed. “I yield.”

“You know,” he muses, brushing her tangle of sweat-drenched dark red curls off the back of her neck to press his mouth to the skin beneath, tasting her with the tip of his tongue and nipping her sharply. “I’m gonna fuck you right here, cause you deserve it for being a cock tease just now, and I’m gonna love sending you out of this room with my come leaking out of you, staining those tight little excuses for a pair of shorts.” She muffles what sounds almost like a whimper, and her ass bucks against his hips. “But this isn’t my forfeit….”

There is a small sound from the direction of the door, a throat clearing. They both tense a little and their heads swivel at the same time. Phil is leaning against the door, staring at them. His eyes are positively _drowning_ with lust as they roam over the tangled bodies of the two people on the floor.

“Phil?” asks Clint softly, because he’s not sure what’s happening or what to do, although the fact that Tasha’s still rocking her ass up against his dick tells him her vote hasn’t changed.

“Don’t stop,” whispers Phil, sinking slowly to the floor with his back braced against the door. “If Natasha doesn’t….mind….please, by all means, don’t stop.”

“Natasha doesn’t mind,” she mutters. “Goddamn it, Barton, quit fucking stalling.” Clint’s brain is having itself a few private moments of turmoil. Not that he remotely cares about Phil watching. What confuses him is that he’s in a pretty nice Toppy headspace and he doesn’t know if that’s going to bother Phil. He slowly pulls Tasha’s shorts down over the swell of hip and ass, looking at Coulson out of the corner of his eye while he does it. Phil looks back, staring fiercely at Clint, who raises his eyebrows at his Master in what he hopes is a revealing enough expression that Phil will understand what he’s asking. Phil has spent a lot of years learning to read Clint’s facial expressions.

“Never seen you like this,” breathes Phil, enraptured. “God, you’re fucking gorgeous.”

Shit, it is so fucking good to be with someone who knows him this well. He flashes Phil a grin, cocky and dirty, and turns his attentions back to Tasha. He’s pretty sure recent events (and the fact that Phil’s sitting in front of the door so nobody can walk in) have changed his mind about when he’s claiming his forfeit. He doesn’t stop using his body to keep Tasha face down on the floor, but he shifts to the side a little so he can touch her, trickling his fingertips down her spine and over the perfect curve of her ass. Jesus, she’s beautiful. He wonders if it makes him a little bit of a bastard that she’s even more beautiful now that he’s beaten her, taken her to the ground like this and owns her. Who the fuck cares?

  
“Taaashaaaa,” he singsongs softly, because he knows it makes him sound a little unhinged, a little scary, in her mind, and that she loves it. She’s so aroused he can smell it, the subtle and unidentifiable scent that is just Tasha, wanting him. His dick throbs insistently, goading him to get on with it. She shifts a little, her legs parting a bit so his fingertips can slide gently between them, getting closer and closer to where her pussy positively drools for his touch.

“Clint,” she grits out, her voice harsh and frustrated.

“Did you let me win, Tash?” he asks conversationally, loving the satiny feel of the baby-soft skin between her thighs.

“Maybe,” she says sullenly. He grins.

The sound of the palm of his hand impacting her bare bottom is like a gunshot in the relative quiet of the room. She jolts in surprise and then snarls at him. His hand leaves a rapidly reddening outline on the pale perfection of her skin. He traces the shape, humming softly to himself in pleasure.

“Did you let me win?” he asks again, still in a perfectly normal tone of voice, still using the barest tips of his talented fingers to whisper against her skin. She makes an irritated sound in the back of her throat.

“So what if I did?” she demands mulishly. Delighted, he spanks her again, harder. She curses under her breath and squirms a little.

“I can do this all day,” he promises softly. “What about you?” And he brings his hand down twice more, once on each creamy cheek. The palm of his hand tingles.

“Clint,” gasps Tasha. “Fuck. Don’t stop!”

“Answer the question, sweetheart, or this conversation is going to get a lot more fun for me and a lot less fun for you,” he purrs softly. She shivers, and he grins some more. God, if anyone could see her now. The Black Widow, at his mercy, close enough to begging him to fuck her that he can almost taste the words in her mouth. He doesn’t need that though, the sight of her alone is enough for him. That no one will ever believe they have moments like this (with the exception of Jane and Thor, possibly, considering what they’ve seen) doesn’t matter to him. The moments are more than enough. He scans the room quickly, assessing his options in case Tasha’s feeling ornery today. It’ll be a miracle if she’s not, actually. Hand to Hand combat dojos don’t run high to BDSM toys, but Clint’s very good at improvising. Faster than Tasha apparently expects, he’s relieved her of her sports bra and shorts and used both to secure her wrists behind her back and tie her ankles together. It won’t hold her long, but she doesn’t really want to escape, and he only needs a minute to snag a couple of things. He hops to his feet and swiftly gathers the items he’s spotted that will serve his purposes. As he trots by the place where Phil sits, the older man gestures at him and Clint pauses, dropping gracefully to his knees beside Coulson, who leans in close to whisper in his ear.

“I am so hot for you right now, beautiful boy,” breathes Phil, making him shiver a little and bringing a wide, delighted smile to his face. “I have always known that you submit to me because you want to, not because I make you, but to see this side of you, then know that tonight you’ll drop to your knees just like you are now and place all that power at my feet….Jesus, Clint. You’re not just doing this for her?”

“No, Master,” he whispers back, and the contradiction of addressing Phil this way while he’s preparing to top his girlfriend means nothing to him. “I love this.”

“May I be allowed to stay and watch?” asks Phil, and the deference in his voice startles Clint, who draws back to look into Phil’s eyes. Phil offers him his hand, and Clint recognizes the words and the gesture, one Dom to another, and is both surprised and touched by it.

“I’d be honored,” he says sincerely, sparing Phil a brilliant smile and continuing about his business. Five minutes’ work has him collecting various items he intends to pervert for his purposes and securing Natasha face-down on a spare weight bench he’s dragged out of a corner and raised to its highest setting, about hip-high, with a wide leather support belt. She struggles a little, but it’s a token struggle, because they both want this. He subdues her easily, yanking her wrists up behind her back until her breath whines through her teeth from the strain and she subsides. He ties her wrists to the uprights of the bench with sports wrap, and her ankles to the legs. She’s unable to do more than clench her fists and kick her feet a little, and curse at him in a wide variety of languages he doesn’t know. She saves Russian for when she really means it or doesn’t mind him understanding her. He imagines the mandarin she’s spitting now is pretty colorful and he’d probably be punishing her for it if he could translate. He eyes Phil and from the slightly scandalized look on his boyfriend’s face he’s sure of it. He’s placed her with her back(side) to Phil, facing into the room, both so Phil can enjoy a better view of the…hem….action, and so Tasha doesn’t have to look at him. He walks around the bench to her head and crouches down in front of her, brushing one loose curl out of her face and tucking it behind her ear.

“We don’t have to do this,” he murmurs to her in a voice that is barely audible. She hears the sincerity, recognizes that he doesn’t want her to be flippant about her answer. Her eyes are steady, unblinking when she replies.

“I am really, really okay, Clint,” she says plainly. “Phil’s only going to see this side of you if you’re doing it with me, since I’m pretty sure you don’t have time for another relationship on the side. And he needs to. See this, I mean. Until now he’s only known intellectually that you switch, and hell, since the times we’ve all been together I’ve been topping too, for all I know he probably believed I’m mostly topping you. Everything about you just _reeks_ of sex. He should see you…well, reeking of it from this side too. Come on, Clint, the man watched pretty up close and personal while you went down on me AND while you fucked me just a few days ago. I’m really going to mind?”

“Have I ever told you I think you’re amazing?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes. “You’re just gone over me.”

“I really am,” he agrees, and leans in for a quick kiss, hissing when she bites him and he tastes the dirty copper tang of blood. “Oh Tash. You’re gonna pay for that one.”

“Before I get too old to enjoy it?” she quips snidely. He laughs.

“Keep it up,” he replies, standing up. “And you’ll be too old to bite me anymore by the time I let you up.” He walks down the length of her body, then throws one leg over her and straddles her, facing away from her head and towards Phil, her ass between his legs. He lifts one hand above his head and brings it down almost too fast to see, snapping his wrist a little so the slap bites hard but doesn’t jar her. She sucks in her breath a little. The position lets him put his back and shoulders into the spanking, playing her like a pair of bongos, hard stinging slaps that redden her flesh quickly and make her squirm madly in her bonds.

“Fuck,” she complains, making him smile.

“Tasha,” he reminds her sternly. “You still haven’t answered my question.

“What question?” she asks sweetly, playing innocent.

“Did. You. Let. Me. Win?” He punctuates each word with a hard spank to her reddening backside.

“Ow. Shit,” she gasps. “No, goddamn it. I didn’t let you win!”

“That’s more like it,” he says approvingly, gently rubbing his tingling palm against her heated ass. “Why, do you think?” He can feel her hesitate, wondering if she’s going to keep giving him a hard time. She apparently decides not to.

“You’re getting your needs met,” she supplies helpfully. He doesn’t slap her again for the cryptic response, just waits. She doesn’t say anything for a little while.

“Explain that,” he says patiently. “I can sit here all day, and I’m pretty sure you want me to be doing something else.” He slides the hand he’s been spanking her with down the curve of her ass and teasingly slides just the tip of one finger down her slit, where her body weeps the moisture of her desire for him.

“God,” she gasps. “Hngh. Clint!”

“Hm?” he inquires carelessly, fingertips tracing the plump contours of her pussy.

“People…carry around all the shit they can’t….get out, right?” she clarifies, sounding a little frustrated.

“That’s true,” he agrees, all ears.

“So every frustration, every stress or whatever, that people carry around sort of weighs them down, tightens them up, so the more they don’t have an outlet for, the more it holds them back, sort of. God knows you’ve had more shit to have to carry around and harder needs to meet than most people. Uncomplicated isn’t a word anybody would apply to you.”

“No,” he agrees, chuckling.

“So in spite of that, now that you have Phil and I both in your life, you just don’t have shit to carry around anymore. You’re freer than I’ve ever seen you, and everything about you shines. It makes you lighter and more responsive to a lot of stuff.”

Natasha’s capacity for insight never surprises him, but this takes him aback for a few seconds while he ponders it, eventually realizing that she’s completely right, and how awesome is that? Because he just loves her ridiculously, and because he wants to, and because it’s a little mean, he slides the finger teasing between her legs gently between the lips of her pussy and rubs the pad of it back and forth across her clit so that she arches against the belt around her waist and groans softly. Then he stops, and she curses at him in French, which she knows he speaks.

“Va te faire foutre,” she hisses. He raises an eyebrow and spanks the backs of her legs half a dozen times, fast and hard, making her yelp a little.

“But I’d much rather fuck _you,_ darlin’,” he laughs.

“Now works for me,” she agrees.

“Hm. Too bad,” he says sympathetically. “I took you down, so this goes how I want it to go.”

“How’s that” she asks casually, playing it off cool, but he can hear the tiny hitch in her breathing, the tiny rough growl in her voice that gives away how much she wants this. Wants him. Is pretending not to care if he answers her or not, but since he can bring her pretty close to coming just from talking to her, he knows she wants him to answer. He ponders leaving her hanging, but this is, at its heart, about giving them both what they want. There isn’t anything about rules or behavior or teaching anybody a lesson in their relationship. It’s just about making each other happy, and it happens that happy for them is often what other people might consider assault. Fuck em. So he tells her.

“You’re gonna want to bear in mind that this may change as I go, right? Depending on how good…or bad…you are, and random shit that may occur to me?”

“Shit. Yeah, like that’s new. Come ON, Clint,” she complains. He laughs a little and spanks her again, cause it’s fun.

“Obviously we can skip the part where I tie you down to this handy bench,” he comments, ignoring her snort of impatience. “You do look good this way though, Tash. Your ass is already kinda red, and you’re just positioned exactly right for me to do whatever I want. I was going to just pull down your shorts and fuck you into the floor, pound into your cunt til you screamed for me, and then tie you to the bed later and torture you for hours before doing it again.” His fingers trace idle circles on the hot skin beneath his hand. “This is good though. Surprising the pervertable shit you can find.” The cheerful, conversational tone in his voice vanishes, chased away by desire, and by the heady thought of what he’s going to do to her, what she’ll let him do to her. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” he murmurs, though it isn’t really a question. “A long time since I tied you down, painted that amazing body with red, made you scream for me, scream because it hurts. You’re gorgeous, Tash, when you suffer for me. When you show me what nobody else sees. So hot, so perfect. Makes me so hard, when you scream, while I watch the marks I’m making light up your skin. God. I’m so hard just thinking about it. I could fuck you now, come in about a minute. But I won’t. I’m gonna find out what these diffuser reeds I found over on that shelf feel like to you. Gonna wrap these strips of leather I found in the cabinet with the practice staves around my fist and see how it feels to you. There’s more, oh yeah, but I think I’ll let some of it be a surprise. Make you crazy for me, Tasha. I’ll touch you while I do all of it, too. Finger your sweet pussy, tease your clit until you want to come so bad you’ll do anything I want. Trace the marks I make on you, feel the way your soft skin heats up. Pull your head back by your hair and fuck your mouth. Make you suck me while I whip you, and if you use your teeth too much, sweetheart, I’ll come down your throat and leave you here. Get me?”

“Jesus,” she swears roughly. “Fuck. Clint, do it. Come on.”

“Thought you wanted me to talk to you,” he chuckles.

“Enough talking. More doing,” she grits out between her teeth. Natasha is quite possibly the most patient person he’s ever met, when the situation calls for it. She can maintain a cover she hates for as long as it takes to accomplish a mission without a single complaint. She can endure the tedious attentions of the most mind-numbingly idiotic people on the planet when her job calls for it. She can ignore the needs of her body, even its aches and pains up to and including broken bones without blinking. He just eats it up that she’s impatient with him, that she trusts him enough to need him, that he matters that much to her. He hopes every day that he doesn’t fuck it up. Love is for children, she’d told Loki. Is it because he’d saved her inner child, given that little girl back to her, that makes it possible for them to love one another?  With another laugh at her impatience, he stands up and goes to a nearby chair where he has laid the things he’s gathered from the room. The handful of slender reeds which had been standing in a glass bottle of oil scented with something sort of woodsy he has wiped off as best he can on a spare towel. They are flexible with the oil they’ve absorbed. Not entirely dry, they’ll leave behind traces of it on her skin. That’s all right. He takes up five of them, comfortable enough to make a fist around, and approaches her from behind. The reeds are about eighteen inches long, and slender, of less diameter than a pencil. He returns, lowering himself smoothly to the floor at her hip. He sits a little to one side, to ensure that Phil has an unobstructed view. Experimentally, he taps the bundle of reeds against Tasha’s backside. She doesn’t react, and he doesn’t expect her to. They’re interesting, vibrating in his hand. He nods absently to himself and brings them down harder. This time a band of pink arises in their wake, just slightly darker than the pink left by the palm of his hand. She breathes in through her nose.

“Sting a bit?” he asks solicitously.

“Bite me,” she shoots back. He shrugs.

“Okay.” Then he leans forward a bit, sucks hard on the flesh of her left buttock so he has a mouthful of her, and bites down hard, digging an imprint of his teeth deeply into her skin. She hisses and curses him, using Russian now. He smirks around her flesh, then lets go and smacks her sharply across the tops of her thighs, right below the crease where her ass meets them. Perfectly even lines of dark red blossom against previously-unmarked skin. She grunts a little and the muscles in her legs clench. “You shouldn’t call the person who has you tied to a bench a son of a whore,” he chides good-naturedly.

She calls him the daughter of a whore. Okay.

The reddened lines on the backs of her legs are joined by another set, then another, harder than the first time. The marks welt up almost immediately, slightly raised white lines bordered with red. She hisses and struggles against her bonds. Because he hasn’t yet, he works his way up her buttocks, covering every inch with evenly spaced welts from the reeds, then uses the fingertips of his free  hand to gently rub the small streaks and splatters of scented oil into her skin. She’s panting a little, and when he shoves two fingers knuckle-deep in her pussy without warning, she moans and spouts further filth. It’s a lot less insulting now though.

“ _Oh god, yes, do it. So good, lover. Never stop.”_

Because he loves the way Russian drips from her mouth, the way the guttural language sounds so filthy and yet so sweet, he finger fucks her for a while, using the bundle of reeds to bite and sting at her ass and thighs while he does it, making her whimper a little and keep up the breathless litany of encouragement.

He’s energized though, his blood humming with the charge of having beaten her. Withdrawing his touch from her and laughing (he’s doing a lot of that today, but fuck if he doesn’t feel awesome) at her annoyed curse, he hops to his feet and goes to poke through the pile of stuff he’s gathered. There are a couple of rolls of soft leather, used to wrap the handles of sparring weapons; the bo staves, rattan training katana, sai. He unrolls several of the three foot strips, wrapping them around his fist. The improvised flogger isn’t heavy, and as it’s suede, it will sting and bring a gorgeous blush to Natasha’s lovely pale skin. With a grin fit to shame the devil, he stalks back to where she lies helpless, waiting for him (not very patiently). He kneels down in front of her and yanks her head up to meet his gaze, his fist tangled in her riot of scarlet curls. Her pupils are blown wide, the rim of cerulean surrounding them luminous, almost electric. Her lush mouth hangs open slightly as she breathes heavily, the pale column of her throat working.

“God,” he whispers. “You’re so fucking perfect, Tash. You gonna bite me if I shove my cock between those pretty red lips?”

“Clint,” she breathes. “It’s your….forfeit. Whatever you want.”

He closes his eyes as a rush of pure male pride of conquest makes him shiver. Right now, in this moment, he owns her. She is the most supremely deadly creature he has ever lived to know, and he _owns_ every ounce of muscled grace, of power and ruthless beauty in her body and her mind and heart. It is intoxicating.

“Open your mouth then, Tasha,” he whispers, getting smoothly to his feet. The bench is at just the right height for it. Well, okay, she’ll have to strain a little, but he doesn’t mind that. Not at all. He lets go of her hair, the silk strands trailing through his fingers, and frees his cock by the expedient method of just shoving his pants and boxer briefs down enough for it to spring up, hard as a rock and quivering with need. She sucks him down, and he watches her throat work around him for a few seconds, fascinated, groaning softly and letting his hips roll gently at the heat and suction and exquisite pressure of her tongue. His hands steals back to her head, but not to capture or control, just to touch her, to stroke through the curls and cradle her skull, fingertips pressing and massaging, and he bites his lip. “Fuck,” he pants. “Shit, babe, you’re so fuckin’ good at that. Love the way you suck my cock, like it’s candy.”

She hums softly and the vibration makes him shiver a little, and brings him back to his intended purpose as it forces him to tamp down on his rising arousal. He doesn’t want to come too soon. He looks down at his other hand, the one gripping the dangling leather straps. His lips curve in a smile and he glances at Phil. Another hard shudder courses through him at the naked desire in Coulson’s eyes. Clint imagines what Phil’s seeing for a few moments. They do make a picture, Tasha’s reddened, naked buttocks on display, her hairless pussy yawning sweetly between the punished flesh of her rounded thighs, the bright crimson ribbons of her hair bouncing a little as her head bobs. And above her, his lover, his property, muscled body sheened with sweat, the marked ridges of his abs and pronounced Apollo’s belt flexing as his hips rock, hard bicep flexing as he caresses her head, a bead of perspiration running slowly down his throat as he breathes raggedly and swallows hard, dark lashes sweeping down in a long slow blink as he closes eyes gone to storm wracked silver-blue with his arousal, Phil’s collar gleaming silver around the base of his throat. Yeah, a picture. He’d fuck him, if he were Phil. In a hot minute. Of course, he might be just a teeny bit pleased with himself just now. He raises the hand holding the leather and lets the ends trail teasingly down Tasha’s back, to fall between the crevice of her cheeks. She groans around his cock and he arches his hips more forcefully. He can fuck her mouth as deep as he likes, because she can take all of him, but if he does that he’s going to come, and he’s not ready. He draws the improvised whip back and brings it down on her back with a raw splat. Her body jerks a little and she moans louder. She nods a little and sucks harder. Murmuring curses, he paints her back with red. She’s more responsive than usual, and that’s saying something. She doesn’t fight him, doesn’t make any effort to prove she can that whatever he dishes it out. He knows she can. They have nothing to prove to each other, although some nights she’s in the mood to resist him. Not now. She writhes and makes muffled whimpers and moans around his slow fucking of her mouth, sucking hard and almost growling with pain and pleasure. She’s trembling when he stops, her eyes watering. Mostly it’s with the effort to take him all the way down her throat and then breathe around him, but maybe not ALL. It’s enough to put him awfully close to the knife edge of losing himself, so he steps back from her, gasping for breath a little and opening his fist to let the leather straps fall silently to the floor. He lets his sweat pants fall to the floor to puddle around his ankles, stepping out of them and pulling his boxer briefs back up over his aching dick. There’s a practice sword leaning against the chair, its blade long and slender, carved of wood, and about a quarter of an inch wide. It makes a fantastic sharp crack against her skin, a dark red band appearing across both her cheeks. She whines through her nose, throwing her head back as the pain sings through her.

“You’ve been a bad girl, Tasha,” he purrs, spanking her with it again. “Trying to cheat while we sparred by making my dick hard.” CRACK “Trying to make me think you let me win.” CRACK. “Using such disgusting language.” CRACK. “Insulting me.” CRACK. She whimpers and her breath sobs in her chest with the strain, her body tugging against its restraints, until finally she screams. It’s electrifying.

He doesn’t know if it is because Phil is watching, or because being fairly beaten by him has surprised her into a much more submissive mindset than he’s ever seen her in, or because she’s giving him a gift, or if it is a combination of all three (that’s pretty likely, actually) but she breaks down a little.

“Please,” she sobs, not truly crying but not far from it either, “please, Clint. I’m sorry. I wo….oww… won’t do it again. God. That fucking hurts. Clint, I need you in me. No more, fuck, hurts! Fuck me, Clint. God, please just fuck me. _Please!”_

“Since you asked so nicely,” he growls, leaning over her, one hand braced on the edge of the bench beside the belt circling her waist, the other making quick work of his shorts. He lines himself up with her slick, hot entrance and shoves, using the muscles in his pack to power into her like he’s going to shove her face-first off the other side of the bench. Her shriek as he slams himself home is mindless. Her hands clutch at empty air, and tension sings through her body as he fucks into her brutally. The slap of their bodies colliding is shockingly loud. The hand not bracing him grips her hip hard, pressing fingerprints into flesh. His thumb curves over her cheek to press against her asshole. She lets out a strangled sound and her pussy clenches hard around his cock. The slow smile that tugs at the corner of his mouth is wicked. He presses harder, slowly forcing her little pucker to give way around the end of his thumb. There’s no lubrication, so it burns a little, and she whimpers, but she’s raising her hips to meet his ruthless, jabbing thrusts, pressing herself against the cruel press of his thumb. He isn’t interested in harming her, so he doesn’t force it all the way in, just uses it to torment her tight little hole a bit, knowing it stings some, knowing the little stab of nerves and heat it’s giving her. Knows that they’re going to do this soon, that she wants him to, though she hasn’t precisely asked.

“Fuck,” she pants. “Clint!”

“I’m gonna do it, Tash,” he hisses. “Gonna fuck you, right in your tight little asshole. I’ll take my time, open you up slow, get us both wet and slick and ready. It’ll burn a little, when I push my cock into you the first time, stretching your hole around me, forcing you open. It hurts a little, Tash. Feels so hot, so scary, having to take a hard cock up your ass. Will it tear you open? Can you take it? What if it hurts too much? You think all that, all at once, but it’s so good. I’ll make it good for you, babe.”

He fucks into her sweet little pussy harder than ever, both of them grunting a little from the impact and the effort. They’ll feel it later, bruised where their bodies meet, tender parts a little raw. He loves that, the echo of their coming together in their flesh the next day.

“Yes,” she gasps. “Anything you want, Clint. God. Fuck. I’m gonna come. With me, please, come with me. God, Clint. Now, please now!”

She shrieks when she comes, her pussy quivering and clenching around him like a silky vice. He throws his head back and sucks in great ragged breaths as her pleasure brings his own, groaning raggedly and shuddering as he empties himself into her body. He unbuckles the belt and tears away the sports wrap with hands that tremble a little. He has the presence of mind to wrap his arms around her as they both slide bonelessly to the floor, protecting her from just tumbling off heedlessly. They both groan a little and then are laughing a little breathlessly. At length, Natasha raises her head a little dizzily and swivels it to look at Phil, who is still watching them avidly.

“Phil,” she croaks, her voice rough from screaming, “I have no idea whether I think you’re a good influence on him or a bad one. But keep it up, yeah?”

Clint feels suddenly a little shy, now that he’s not immersed in the scene, wondering what Phil is thinking. He holds out his hand towards his Master, and to his surprise, Coulson crawls across the floor to them. At first Clint is alarmed by this, but the expression on Phil’s face and his body language is not at all submissive, it’s just more like he doesn’t want to get up to take a few steps over to them and then sit back down, so that’s all right. He briefly squeezes Clint’s outstretched hand, then sits back on his heels, watching them, a small smile playing at his lips.

“Was it all right, Sir?” asks Clint softly, and Phil stares at him wonderingly for several long seconds before he answers.

“Before I answer that, may I ask you something?” he replies at last. Clint shifts a little, tightening his arms around Tasha for comfort and planting a kiss on the top of her head.

“You can always ask me anything,” he says honestly.

“If I told you to get on your knees right this moment and suck my cock, how would you feel?” asks Phil keenly, watching Clint’s face intently. Clint, for his part, finds the question a bit bewildering.

“The same way I always feel,” he says, a little uncomfortably, because he isn’t sure if that’s the right answer or not.

“You really mean that,” says Phil, with something that sounds like wonder in his voice. “You’d turn right around from this,” he gestures at their entwined bodies, “and kneel for me without a thought.”

“Well….yes,” says Clint, wondering what the big deal is.

“Amazing,” murmurs Phil. “Clint, that was fantastic. Seeing you top was…well, I’m a little surprised at how attractive I found it. The two of you are so lovely together, just the interaction of your bodies together is worth a look. I suppose I haven’t spared a lot of thought for the idea that you like to switch, love. But you’re not just playing at it, you’re incredible to watch. I’m so glad you trusted me enough to let me. Natasha, thank you,” says Phil softly. Tasha gestures airily at him with one hand, and they all laugh. “I have to tell you, beautiful boy,” says Phil, his voice warm with affection and something akin to awe. “I am stunned that you would so easily pull yourself from the headspace you must be in to participate in a scene like that and offer your submission to me moments later. I’m not asking it,” he hurries to explain, “I only mean I am so turned on by the knowledge that it’s that simple to you, that you wouldn’t even hesitate. It makes what you offer me even more rare, more special. I know that headspace, and it’s not easy to snap out of it. You’re a very rare person.”

Clint flushes a little with pleasure, ducking his head to hide it in the jumble of Tasha’s hair, feeling a little embarrassed by the effusive praise. He doesn’t see why it’s a big deal. No matter what he does or who he does it with, he still wears Phil’s collar. He knows Phil won’t come between him and Natasha, though the sharing thing is getting more and more interesting as time goes on, but he doesn’t really understand why it’s so amazing that he can step from one mindset into another. It seems to him a little like the singing thing. It’s just who he is.

“Don’t try to figure it, Phil,” says Natasha lazily, reaching back to stroke her fingernails over Clint’s scalp. “He defies explanation. He can step from one role to the other like changing his socks, and with about as much effort. I think it’s just because he’s really that much of a freak.”

“Ha ha,” he mutters darkly into her hair.

“Perhaps,” agrees Phil. “But I’d say he’s the most wonderful kind of freak.”

“Yeah,” sighs Tasha lazily, stretching and wincing a little when he body protests. “Cause he’s our freak.”

Clint nods and turns his head, laying his cheek against her hair and looking at Phil, whose eyes are still hungry.

“What are you doing for the next hour or so?” asks Coulson intensely.

“Nothing in particular, Sir. Why?” he replies, now mesmerized by the look in Phil’s eyes.

“Because I’d very much like to be fucking you soon,” murmurs the older man softly.

Tasha rolls to her feet and retrieves her clothes, and Clint protests a little. She dismisses him with a flapping gesture.

“Stop,” she says quellingly. “I have a meeting in a little bit, and I don’t have time for you. Coulson,” she adds, looking over her shoulder. “Do me a favor?”

“What’s that, my dear?” asks Phil, suppressing a chuckle when Natasha winces again while pulling on her shorts.

“Make it hurt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized I haven't really included an explanation for the terminology of the BDSM relationships between the three players in this tale.
> 
> There are a number of titles in the lifestyle, with different meanings. FOR THE MOST PART (and please, never think I am making any absolute, sweeping statements when it comes to the lifestyle) people who just enjoy the sensation, and the play of a scene or fantasy or roleplay are Tops and bottoms. This is, generally, where Clint and Natasha's relationship falls. They aren't hung up on protocols or rules of behavior, and they change roles relatively easily.
> 
> Dominant and submissive are, generally, a step farther up the scale. There is power exchange happening, are usually some rules and protocols expected, wherein one partner is in charge and the other prefers not to be. There are so many facets of Dominance and submission that books have been written. I'm not going to begin to try to analyze or explain them all.
> 
> Master and slave/sub are generally thought to be the deepest level of power exchange, wherein some people even go so far as to surrender all their rights to their "owner," giving up their belongings and sense of self. Again, there are multiple facets to these sorts of relationships.
> 
> I don't mean to offend sticklers for titles in my writing. Master is a title some people grant to Doms while others claim should only be given in an M/s relationship. Clint isn't *precisely* Phil's slave, because circumstances, their jobs, and his personality don't quite work that way for me in my mind's view of them. He is also a little bit deeper than just submissive to Phil, as he does consider himself Phil's property.
> 
> Basically, their relationship works for them, and they don't give a rat's ass for accepted titles and protocols. Some hardcore lifestylers would probably find Clint's behavior frequently shocking, and would denigrate Phil for not controlling his boy better. Phil would probably smile and tell them to take their unwanted opinions with them when they left. Clint would probably tell them to fuck off. Clint is not "A sub," he is "Phil's sub." 
> 
> I just sort of felt compelled to publicly recognize that I occasionally play a little fast and loose with the terms, and that it actually is intentional and not a reflection of ignorance on my part. I do it because in my mind, they make their own rules, and don't care a whit that their rules don't always comply with accepted lifestyle standards. I'm not belittling accepted lifestyle standards. I would, in fact, advise anybody planning to take the plunge into the BDSM community to find out what the titles and protocols of their local scene are and don't go against them. I'm not telling you to conform, I am saying that showing respect to your fellow kinksters is polite, and will go a long way towards making you friends as opposed to detractors in your area's scene.


	18. Part 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well honestly, I don't have an excuse for this one except to say I've developed an uncomfortable preoccupation with thinking about Phil punishing Clint's hole. This chapter above all others really is just filthy porn.
> 
> Basically, I wrote it to try to get it out of my head, and because I have a part in mind coming up that's pretty plottish and not as dirty, so this is an apology in advance for that. I've also started working on Bruce so it may be a little longer than usual before I update again

Clint buries his face in his pillow, trembling. He feels sick in his stomach, and only a little of it is from the hangover. Last night had been….a disaster. A retirement party for a senior agent he knew a little but Phil knew better, and pretty much everybody had attended. He had been feeling so good, because he’d been there with Phil. WITH Phil, in front of all those handlers who had washed their hands of him, all his old fellow agents, everybody who had once been an obstacle Phil would never have been able to get over, had Hawkeye not become an Avenger and Coulson given the West Coast  division. He doesn’t know why it had made him feel so absurdly happy for Phil to touch him in front of those people. A brush of his hand along Clint’s lower back, a brief squeeze of hands, a fleeting stroke down his spine in passing. Nothing explicit. At least, not at first.

Clint doesn’t usually drink champagne for the reason that it tends to make him pretty hyper. But there was Cristal, and it seemed like everybody had wanted to make a toast to the retiring Senior Agent Fellowes. Even though he hadn’t paid a lot of attention to the speeches, he had raised his glass to every one of them, because in his own mind he’d been toasting the fact that Phil was publicly marking him as his lover, and he hadn’t been acting embarrassed or awkward about it at all. Within an absurdly short period of time, Clint had gotten drunk. He had been happy and drunk and Phil had been fucking hot because Clint always thinks he is, and Clint had wanted to just bite him. So he had. Among many other things he had done to express how pleased he was to be drunk and Phil’s date to an official SHIELD function and how much it made him want Phil. Said things had included kissing Phil, telling Phil in really loud stage whispers what he hoped Phil would be doing to him later, and grinding his ass against Phil’s crotch at every opportunity, despite the fact that Phil had warned him to tone it down. More than once. Clint groans into his pillow and shifts a little. It’s an awkward position, lying on his stomach with Phil sitting on the bed between his legs, with Clint’s hips resting on his thighs and his legs around Phil’s waist.

He’s getting ready to be punished, and he’s pretty scared. Phil’s not happy with him at all. He’s already given Clint a lecture on behaving like a two bit whore in front of Phil’s colleagues and disobeying a direct order from his Master and embarrassing Phil in front of people he has to continue to work with and on drinking too much.

“I’m very sorry, Sir,” he whispers. “It’ll never happen again, I promise.” There are already tears of remorse in his eyes, but he doesn’t think they’re going to make Coulson go any easier on him.

“I know you are, baby boy. And I know it will never happen again, because I intend to make sure that the memory of this punishment stays with you for a very long time.”

Clint muffles a whimper of fear.

“Now,” says Phil briskly, “here is what’s going to happen. You need to listen carefully now, Clint, because the slightest failure to obey me and follow my directions here is going to mean further punishment. Do you understand?”

“Yes Master,” sniffles the younger man sorrowfully.

“All right. You are going to reach back with your hands and grab your asscheeks.” (Clint groans softly in dread). “You are going to hold yourself open as wide as you can. I want the little puckers of your asshole spread out for me. I am then going to whip you on your hole with this.” He reaches up to the pillow where Clint is muffling his terrified panting. Clint looks out of the corners of his eyes and whines through his nose. “This,” continues Phil, “is a fan belt for a car’s radiator which I have cut into a thing called a groove strap. It’s an implement made for the purpose of whipping someone inside the groove of their buttocks.” His fingertip traces the crease of Clint’s ass as he explains. Clint chokes a little and bites his lip.

“Please…” he whispers. Phil ignores him, continuing his explanation.

“It’s made of rubber. Rubber implements in general sting a very great deal more than leather or wooden ones. I won’t lie to you, Clint. I intend for it to hurt a lot more than any of the other three times I’ve spanked your asshole. Those were for fun. This is for the purpose of teaching you a lesson. You’re not permitted to let go of your cheeks, no matter how much it hurts or how hard you cry or how long it takes. You are NOT allowed to beg me to stop, no matter how badly you want to, and I assure you that you’re going to want me to stop more than you’ve wanted anything in a long time.” Clint muffles a tiny sob and shifts a little. Phil strokes a hand down the archer’s back.

“I’ll try Sir,” he whispers.

“You’d better. Now, this is not to say that you can’t make noise. I wouldn’t be that cruel to you, not in the face of how difficult this is going to be. You may cry. You may scream as loudly as you wish. You may apologize, or thank me for punishing you. But Clint?” Phil’s voice is hard and menacing.

“Yes Sir?”

“If the word ‘please’ comes out of your mouth, you had better catch yourself and make sure the next words out of that mouth are ‘punish me harder, Sir,’ or you are not going to like what happens. The only thing you can beg for, little boy, is for me to whip your hole harder. Are we clear?”

Clint’s affirmative is barely audible. He’s pretty damn sure he’s NOT going to be begging to be whipped harder. He’s having trouble imagining how this could hurt any worse than the other few times Phil has used a toy on his hole. He’s cried every time.

“After I feel you’ve been crying long enough, I’m going to lubricate you and my cock, and I’m going to fuck you. I am not going to stretch you first, and it is not going to be slow. I am going to use you hard, and it’s going to hurt your punished asshole badly. I won’t damage you, and we both know you can take a fucking without much prep, but it’s going to hurt your raw, swollen hole very much to have to lie there and take my cock reaming you out while you’re howling and bawling. Once I come in your ass, your punishment will be over and this will be forgotten. But Clint?”

“Yes Sir?”

“You’re not allowed to come. If you do, you’re going to be a very sorry little boy. Would you like to know why?”

“Yes,” gulps Clint.

“Because tomorrow at this time, I will repeat this punishment if you disobey me by coming tonight while I fuck you. Punishment fucks are not for your enjoyment. You acted like a dirty little cockslut and a tease last night, boy. Boys who tease almost never like what they get. The only thing keeping this punishment from being a lot worse is that I adore you ridiculously and I don’t care who knows it. That, and you rubbing that incredible body all over me last night like you couldn’t stand to wait… well, part of me didn’t hate it. Part of me,” breathes Phil, leaning forward over Clint’s upraised ass a little so he can hear him better, “ohh baby boy, part of me wanted to give you what you were asking for. Then and there. Bend you over one of those tables with its pretty white tablecloth, pull down your pants, with everyone watching, take out my cock…and fuck you, hard enough to make you bawl for me that it hurt so _much._ That’s the part of me that’s making this punishment something that I know is going to excite you. It’s vindictive, and I’m man enough to admit it, that part of me is going to enjoy leaving you as frustrated as you made me last night.”

“Yes, Master,” whimpers Clint, though there’s a little bit of relief in his voice. His dick’s been hard since Phil started talking and the guilt of being aroused by the impending punishment has been making him feel terrible. He’s desperately glad to find out he’s supposed to be.

“But the other part, Clint, is not pleased with you at all. You know very well why, and I won’t be a man who beats you down emotionally by rubbing misdeeds into your face until you feel horrible about yourself. You’ll bear this, love, because I won’t have it happen again, and when it’s over, I’ll never mention it again. Everybody screws up, Clint. The beautiful thing about a relationship like ours is that we have a way of dealing with it and truly leaving it behind.”

Clint has always felt the same way. It’s one small part of the attraction for him in the BDSM lifestyle, that mistakes and stuff don’t have to be left lying around to fester and cause resentment. He understands it doesn’t always work that way for everybody, and that Dominants are just as prone as anyone else to hold grudges, but that the ones like Phil who don’t are, in his mind, head and shoulders above a regular boy or girlfriend who just has to get pissed off and hope things work out. Something does occur to him though.

“Sir?” he asks hesitantly, not sure if it’s even okay to speak, but Phil doesn’t seem to mind.

“Yes baby?”

“Wh…um. What happens if it’s you that screws up?” Phil is silent for long enough that it starts to make Clint nervous he has said something really inappropriate under the current circumstances. Then Phil laughs a little ruefully.

“I don’t suppose I’ve ever thought about it that way,” he admits, and the hand resting on Clint’s ass strokes absently. Clint resolutely holds his hips still and doesn’t sigh. “It’s my job to try very hard not to. But that’s a pretty good question, because when it comes down to it, I’m as human as anyone else, and we should probably expect that I’m going to make a mistake or two along the way too. If accountability is one of the few things that make a lifestyle relationship easier than a vanilla one, then accountability should go both ways, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know, Sir,” says Clint honestly, because he can’t really imagine any kind of a scenario where something like that makes sense in his brain.

“Hardly fair, is it, what I’m getting ready to do to you, if there’s nothing to make me take responsibility if I offend or hurt you?”

“You can just….apologize,” says Clint, starting to feel a little aggrieved by the hold up. Not that he’s looking forward to the punishment because Jesus FUCK it’s going to be awful. He’s about ready to cry now just thinking about it. He’s a little concerned that part of what he’s scared of is whether he’ll be able to keep himself from coming when Phil fucks him. He doesn’t have any idea why it’s a turn on to get fucked raw while he’s crying, but it is. Ironically, this makes him hope Phil makes him hurt really bad so he won’t be able to. That this hope might be futile crosses his mind. Phil’s never hurt him too bad to let him come. And face it, Phil has hurt him pretty fucking bad.

“I’m not sure that’s the answer. Shall we agree that it’s something we do need to talk about, and leave it for another time? I imagine the waiting is getting a little nerve-wracking for you.”

“Yes please,” whispers Clint.

“All right. You’ll learn to obey me when I tell you to stop doing something, Clint, even when you’re drunk. Tell me your instructions.” Clint swallows hard, his mouth dry with fear.

“I….I hold myself open and don’t let go. I can make noise but not beg you to stop. And I don’t get to come,” he pants, his voice thready with nerves.

“Good boy,” says Phil, petting him one last time, then settling back. Clint chokes on his helpless mewl of sorrow, and trembles, waiting. “Get ready, love.”

Clint feels his fingers shaking when he reaches back and gets two good handfuls of the rounded muscle of his asscheeks. His fingers dig in hard when he spreads himself open, pulling until he feels the stretch in the soft skin of his crevice burn a little. He can only imagine how he must look, his hole presented up to Phil for chastisement, the tight little pucker pulled open slightly, the hint of tender pink showing, winking and quivering at the feel of the cool air of the room. He tries to control his frightened, shallow panting and the way his heart seems to bang in his ears. He flinches hard when Phil taps the tip of the groove strap gently against his anus. He holds his breath, waiting. One of the things that’s good about Phil is that he almost never keeps Clint waiting long.

The quiet snapping splat of the rubber against his spread asshole wrenches an agonized yelp from him. The pain of it is sharp and immediate, stabbing down into his hole as though burying itself inside his body, which he suddenly fears is not up to the task of absorbing it. Phil is as good as his word, and whips his boy’s exposed hole hard, over and over and over again. He is hideously accurate, so that the tip of the fan belt snaps down right in the center of the archer’s quivering hole, biting cruelly at the oh-so-sensitive, soft pink inner flesh Clint is tremulously exposing for him. Clint’s crying out in pain from the very first stroke, his asshole igniting under the strap like nothing he’s ever felt. The sting and burn of it builds and builds, only there is no climax to it, only a crescendo of agony that ramps up and up. He’s in tears in less than 2 minutes, gasping and weeping sorrowfully as he clenches his fingers and concentrates on not letting go. He’s sobbing in another minute, unable to hold out against pain this raw, this intimate and shattering.

“It hurts!” he cries, his breath tearing at his lungs as he gasps raggedly, trying to breathe through his pain and tears. “Oh god, it hurts so much!” He’s nearly mindless with it, a thing of only nerves and instinct, and all of those hurt. Instinct usually serves Clint well, and while it is definitely his instinct to obey Phil, he has other instincts he’s not very used to sublimating when he hurts this much. “It hurts it HURTS oh Phil PLEASE…”

The whipping stops abruptly and Clint suddenly feels nauseous. “No,” he sobs, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it!”

“Please what, Clint?” hisses Phil silkily.

“I can’t,” chokes Clint, shaking in fear.

“Please. What. Clint,” snarls his Master, and there is no compromise in his voice. Clint sobs in defeat and lays his face down on his pillow.

“Please,” he chokes, “please…wh…whip me…h…harder Sir,” he cries miserably. The softly murmured   
‘good boy,” is the only thing that saves him from despair. Phil gives him what he’s asked for, and he is so, so sorry not have remembered not to beg, because though he would have sworn moments before that it would be impossible for his blazing little asshole to hurt any more than it did then, he finds he would have been wrong. So very wrong. He feels the shift in Phil’s posture as he lifts his arm higher, feels the older man’s other hand tense on Clint’s hip, pressing down a little and holding him tighter. The strap bites down and Clint shrieks. He buries his face in the pillow again and bawls as Phil continues to mercilessly punish his hole, never pausing, never missing, laying down stroke after stroke of cruelty while the younger man writhes and cries and babbles mindlessly that he is so, so sorry and he will never NEVER do it again and that it hurts, oh god, oh fuck, it hurts so much, it hurts oh it hurts. Sorry, I’m so sorry. Master, god, it’s so bad. Oh, oh fuck, Sir, my hole hurts so fuckin’ much. Inside his head he’s begging and begging. Please please please stop, oh I can’t, no more oh god oh please no more. He doesn’t let the words out again, because he knows if he has to hold still for that again, hold himself open and vulnerable and beg for Phil to make it hurt more, he will break something inside his head and he will not be able to stop begging.

It goes on for what seems like ages to Clint, but it probably only a few minutes. His asshole feels like Coulson has been pressing a hot poker to it for about an hour, throbbing and blazing merrily away while Clint howls in pain and sorrow. Oh fuck, he’s so SO sorry. He’s so utterly lost in his tears and remorse and personal hell of pain that he’s not even aware it’s stopped at first. Once he is, he is pathetically grateful, knows it, and doesn’t care. He thanks Phil incoherently, and is very very careful that at least once in there he thanks his Master for punishing him, not just for stopping. Though it is for stopping, mainly, that he babbles his thanks between choked sobs.

Phil gently nudges Clint forward off his lap so that Clint is pushed onto his knees, face still buried in the pillow his arms cradle to him like a security blanket as he cries. He howls miserably when the movement causes the crevices of his punished hole to rub against one another. He bites his lips and trembles against the nearly unbearable urge to plead for mercy. He doesn’t know how he’ll make it through getting fucked without the release of begging. His lover lubricates him as quickly and carefully as possible while still being quite thorough, but it hurts like fucking hell anyway. Clint’s pained sobs make Phil hum softly under his breath as his finger slides past the swollen ring of abraded flesh and into the younger man’s body. He drizzles lube onto Clint’s hole, and it feels cold and good on his burning skin, but when Phil pushes the slick inside him and spreads it around, it’s pure hell. Clint’s gasping for breath against panicked hyperventilation when Phil stops and he feels his lover’s hands gentle on his hip and his back.

“Clint,” says Phil softly. “I’m changing one of the rules, baby boy.”

“Hungh?” whimpers Clint wetly.

“I want to hear you begging for mercy while I fuck you, love.”

“Master,” cries Clint, his voice thick with tears and pain, “I can do it, I can!” He finds it somehow unbearably wrenching that Phil would take pity on him now.

“You don’t want to question me right now, adorable brat,” purrs Phil, giving his finger a nasty twist and making Clint mewl helplessly. “I know what it costs you not to. You’ve paid enough of that price, getting through that whipping, and I’m impressed that you only slipped once. I think it would…damage you, to have to hold it in any more. And Clint?”

“Yes Sir?”

“I come so _hard_ when you beg.”

He doesn’t waste any more time, withdrawing his slick finger and pressing the head of his cock against Clint’s raw, puffy entrance. Clint wails at the hurt of the acidity of Phil’s precome smearing against his hole, and then his wail is forced into a strangled scream as Phil pushes his cock firmly into Clint’s blazing hot, tormented little asshole, forcing him open in one long, slow slide in. It rips Clint’s breath away on the tail end of his scream and all he can do is shudder and pant helplessly as Phil holds himself still, buried to his balls in the crying boy’s punished hole, letting Clint feel the burn. When Phil’s hips move, begin to slowly drag back, gliding agonizingly back through trembling, aching flesh, Clint recovers his voice.

He begs. Oh, he begs. He cries and pleads with Phil to stop, to please wait, to have mercy and not fuck him. He sobs and entreats his lover pitifully not to hurt his hole anymore as he swears he will be so fucking good Phil will never have to do it again. He bawls and begs for his punishment to end, shudders and whines and promises anything Phil wants if he will just not fuck anymore. Phil makes filthy unsympathetic noises in his chest and fucks a little harder. Clint yowls in pain and begs some more.  Phil growls….and fucks a little harder.

“PLEASE,” sobs Clint, squirming and struggling while he’s reamed out mercilessly, pained howls torn from his body at the unending burn of his Master’s cock dragging back and forth through the quivering, heated, clenching ring of painful, swollen fire that is Clint’s asshole. “Oh please Sir, _please_ don’t fuck me anymore. Ohgod, oh fuck, it hurts so bad. So fuckin bad. Please, Phil, I’ll do anything you…wa…want!”

“You’re doing exactly what I want, Clint,” whispers Phil, grasping Clint’s hips tighter and jabbing himself cruelly into the sobbing man’s hole. “You’re _suffering.”_

Suddenly, Clint’s in trouble.  When Phil is merciless, he is the hottest Clint ever finds him. And Phil is as perfectly merciless as he has ever been, except on the day when he offered to put a bullet in the brain of the man who had abused his boy. Phil isn’t trying to hit Clint’s prostate, but he’s not trying not to either, and he’s doing so pretty frequently. Often enough that, coupled with the glorious freedom of begging for mercy and how hot that voice sounds when he’s being cruel, Clint feels insidious pleasure start to coil in his belly.

“Oh no,” he whispers, frantic. “Oh no, no, no. Sir. Phil! Please, you gotta stop, please please! Please Sir, please come, but please you GOTTA stop!”

“You know what happens if you come, boy,” hisses Phil, fucking even more ruthlessly. Clint’s eyes roll back into his head and he howls in agonized fear as his body’s reaction grows more insistent.

“Please,” he screams. “I can’t!” He tries to relax, to breathe through the approaching hard clench of pleasure that threatens to swamp him. Phil pays no attention and slams into him again, then again, and Clint feels Coulson’s cock jerking inside his sore hole, fingers digging bruises into his hips, breath torn harshly from between clenched teeth. It’s more than he can stand.

Clint comes, crying and begging for forgiveness. Phil pets him and strokes fingers through his sweaty hair and pulls carefully from his shaking body. It makes Clint cry harder, because his hole hurts really bad. Phil hugs him and his fingers gently brush tears from Clint’s face and he kisses him.

“Of course I forgive you, beautiful boy,” he whispers kindly. “But we’re still doing it again tomorrow.”

 

The next day, there are tears rolling silently down Hawkeye’s cheeks as he obeys Phil’s command to take off his clothes and lie face down on the bed. When Phil lifts his hips and slides under them so that Clint’s ass is propped up on his lap, Clint whimpers and starts to cry a little.

“Do you have to, Master?” he whispers tremulously. Phil strokes the tip of his finger down Clint’s crease to brush over his sore hole. Clint keens behind his lips.

“I told you what was going to happen if you came, baby boy,” says Phil in answer.

“I tried,” pleads Clint miserably.

“I know. And I’m not angry with you. I love that you’re so responsive to me that no matter how much it hurts, your body reacts to me with desire. But love, I need you to learn to control yourself. Part of what happened at that party was a reflection of the fact that you haven’t ever had to. Your pain…and your pleasure…are mine to give when we’re together. Do you agree?”

“Yes Sir,” agrees Clint wholeheartedy.

“Last night, I forbade you pleasure, and you took it anyway.”

“I’m so sorry!”

“Don’t be sorry, Clint,” says Phil softly, picking up the groove strap. “This isn’t punishment. Not tonight. It’s a lesson. Learn it.”

“Yes Master. Do….does it have to be as hard as last night?” whispers Clint in a small voice.

“I wouldn’t be repeating it if I didn’t whip your sweet little hole just as hard as last night, would I?”

Clint groans, because FUCK Phil knows it shreds him when he talks that way. He gets why Phil says it. He’s absolving Clint of guilt, showing him he doesn’t want him to feel bad about this, allowing him the dirty pleasure of the words he gives him. While this may seem contradictory to Phil’s desire for Clint not to come, it’s not. Clint’s pretty sure pain is going to make certain of that in a little bit, because his brain can’t even fathom getting off on going through this a second time. The arousal is fleeting, a small kindness to show the archer that Phil truly isn’t angry at him. He presses his lips together on a whimper and nods slightly, reaching back and spreading his ass cheeks for Phil without being asked. He is desperately, sickeningly sore and afraid and sorry, but inside all of that a kernel of warmth prevents him from true misery, because Phil’s resolve feeds Clint’s need for him and his faith. He can depend on Phil, even when it’s not fun. Phil keeps his word.

The whipping is awful. Clint screams through it, his body shuddering and his teeth chattering in pain, his fingers cramping against the desire to let go and stop holding himself open for the steady, hard lashing of his hole by the fan belt. The bright flare of pain against his already sore flesh pulls shrieks from his guts like he’s being torn apart. Not yet, that comes later, he thinks dizzily, giving agonized voice to his torment. It is the hardest thing he has ever done, to lie there passive while his asshole is beaten again, when the voice in the back of his head starts to whisper to him that he could end this. There is his safeword. And even if there is not, Phil couldn’t stop him if he wanted to get up and walk away. Clint is stronger, faster, and tougher, and he can stop this any time he wants to. And oh god, when the strap bites down and his tender hole flares with white hot pain, he wants to.

But he doesn’t. Because more than he wants it to stop, he wants it to continue. Wants it proven to him yet again that he can always count on Phil doing what he says he will do. Every stroke of the strap and every gasping, shuddering sob Clint utters is another nail into the bulwark of Clint’s faith in the man who torments his body and heals his soul. So he howls and bawls, and he writhes and screams that he is sorry, and inside his heart is totally unburdened by fear or doubt.

In the end, Phil does change things a little, but Clint is too embarrassingly grateful to care. He slicks the younger man’s hole quickly and efficiently. Clint shivers and cries, pleading softly with Phil as he is freed to do so.

“Please no,” he whispers. “Please no please no please no.”

“Shh,” says Phil softly, positioning himself at Clint’s entrance. He presses into the archer slowly, carefully. Clint cries and cries while Phil fucks him, slowly and gently, taking great care not to tug too sharply at Clint’s beaten hole. Phil whispers to him how good he’s being, tells him he can do this. Clint’s only response is to cry more, begging softly every now and then for Phil to stop.

“No,” breathes Phil, and slides back into him deeply. Clint shudders and gasps out a sob.

“Oh Master,” he pleads in a tiny, sad voice. “it hurts so bad.”

“I know baby boy,” says Phil gently.

“I’m not going to come,” whimpers Clint, tears muffling his voice.

“You’re a good boy, Clint,” responds Phil, pulling out smoothly and carefully, then pressing back in just as carefully. Clint cries and lets go of the pillow he’s been clutching. His shaking hands reach behind him and Phil gathers them at the small of Clint’s back in one of his own, squeezing gently.

“I w..wanna be good for you,” he cries. “Oh Phil, my hole hurts so bad.”

“I know it does, baby,” purrs Phil softly in his ear. “So good, so brave. I know it hurts you so much. I know you can do this, you can take this from me and show me you can obey me.”

Clint moans softly through his tears. As last night, when Phil talks to him, he feels a tiny warm curl of pleasure at the base of his spine. Phil senses it when Clint rocks back to meet his next thrust, almost imperceptibly, but Phil is a lot more perceptive than most, especially when it comes to Clint.

“You _can_ do this,” says Phil firmly.

“I can,” agrees Clint, throttling back on the warmth gathering inside him, though he still has not stopped crying. “Master?”

“Yes love?”

“C… _hngh_ …can I have the same rules….as th…the first w…whipping?”

Phil’s voice is a little confused when he tells Clint that he can.  Clint nods once, closing his eyes and regulating his breathing, tears squeezing out and rolling down to his chin to dampen the pillow under his face.

“Then… _ohhfuck….fuck…_ then _PLEASE_  Master…make it hu…hurt more,” he cries beseechingly, because he needs Phil to make really sure he doesn’t lose control again. He can’t, just _can’t_ ….take this again tomorrow night.

“My God,” says Phil fervently. “I love you so damn much.”

He fucks Clint harder. Clint cries harder. He cries and cries and cries. He doesn’t come.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil surprises Clint by picking him up at the retrieval point on a routing op, and then Clint's world goes to hell when Phil drugs him and accuses him of being a traitor to SHIELD, severing their relationship and torturing him for information. 
> 
> THIS CHAPTER SUCKS!!!!!!! It is HORRIBLE! It will make your heart hurt. It is RIFE with triggers regarding torture and non-consent.
> 
> All, however, is not always what it seems

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be warned! There is NO FLUFF in this chapter. It is grim and awful and wrenching. It's heartbreaking and painful and not fair. This laughs in the face of angst and kicks it to the curb and stomps on it. 
> 
> If you're triggered by rape, torture, kidnapping, betrayal etc, please don't read it. Of course, if you follow my stories it's likely this isn't a problem for you. However, this is not a negotiated pretend rape/torture scene, it really happens, and it's pretty harsh, so be prepared!
> 
> No, I haven't lost my mind. Something someone suggested a while back about having something really awful happen to Clint has been simmering for a while and this is what came out. 
> 
> Yes, I'm going to fix it. 
> 
> Don't hate me

It’s a mission well beneath his talents. He could do it with both eyes closed, probably. It seems a terrific waste to him to be flown halfway around the world just to climb a tree and put a single arrow carrying a listening device into the air duct of a heavily guarded warehouse on the ass end of nowhere, Somalia. That the warehouse is there in the first place is strange, because there are no other buildings for miles around, and that it should require state of the art security measures makes it even stranger. Since it’s completely surrounded by open ground, and even Tony has been unable to find a weakness in their security that he can be really sure of, there is only one way to get ears inside. He supposes technically it’s not fair to say the mission is beneath him, because from the treetop to the two-inch side grating of the air vent it is a bit more than 500 yards, and the arrow can’t touch the metal of the vent cover or it will be heard. There isn’t anyone else in the world who can make the shot, not for sure. But it still seems kind of wasteful to him. Maybe wasteful’s not the right word. Maybe it just feels wrong to be going on a SHIELD op at all, when he hasn’t been a regular specialist in more than a year now, but an Avenger, and it feels even more wrong to be doing it with Sitwell as his handler instead of Phil.  Not that Jasper’s really his handler per se, because it’s too simple a job for all that it is important, and aside from that, Clint doesn’t need a handler. It does give him a bit of a pang though, when he descends from the tree and puts a half mile or so between himself and the mysterious warehouse and then opens coms.

“Hawkeye reporting in,” he mutters, jogging towards the rendezvous point.

“Report,” says Sitwell immediately, in his voice which is not Phil’s voice and thus makes Clint feel unsettled.

“Mission accomplished. ETA at extraction point forty seven minutes.”

“Roger that, Hawkeye. Well done. See you back at base.”

“Thanks Jasper,” he says with a slight grin, abandoning mission jargon because he can. Jasper, who is a bit of a stickler but also a good guy and who knows perfectly well that Clint’s not his subordinate, laughs.

“Enjoy the ride back,” he says, and Clint can nearly hear the smirk in his voice. He’s pondering the meaning of this when he reaches his extraction point and sees the black SUV waiting for him. The passenger side window rolls soundlessly down and Clint’s breath catches as his face blossoms with a huge smile. He hops into the vehicle.

“I thought you had meetings in New York all week,” he says, his eyes drinking in the sight of Phil in the driver’s seat, his quintessential dark suit looking perfectly pressed in spite of the heat.

“I could head back,” offers Phil with a smirk. “Let you walk back to Berbera and find your own flight back to base.”

“Not complaining,” Clint hastens to assure him. “Just surprised.”

“A good surprise, I hope,” says Phil.

“Very good,” sighs Clint happily. Phil, however, then turns serious.

“Actually, I’m not really here to surprise you. Well, not ONLY here for that,” he says quietly.

“Something’s wrong,” says Clint, picking up on the tension in Phil’s body and facial expression.

“Yes,” he agrees, “although we’re not sure to what extent. SHIELD’s been compromised, Clint. We have a leak somewhere. Some transmissions were picked up between New York and this vicinity yesterday. Nick sent me to oversee the investigation on this end. We’re pretty sure it has something to do with whatever’s happening in that warehouse you bugged.”

“Fuck,” swears Clint fervently, as they roll into the outskirts of the small coastal city where their Somali safehouse is located. “Do you have any idea who it is?”

Phil doesn’t answer immediately, frowning at his knuckles where they grip the steering wheel tightly, giving away his frustration and anger at having a spy in their midst. Clint doesn’t blame him. He’d be angry too. Hell, he IS angry too! After a couple of minutes, Phil pulls up beside a nondescript building with cracked plaster and a faded sign that proclaims it to be a coffee shop. Possibly it was one at one time, but now it just looks deserted. Clint’s eyes are scanning the street, looking for a tail or some other outward threat which might cause Phil to be stopping now. As a result, he doesn’t see the pressure syringe until he feels the tiny sting of it at his throat. His head snaps around to stare at his Master incredulously.

“When did they get to you?” asks Phil coldly. “How long have you been betraying us, Clint? Betraying ME?” His blue eyes are like ice as Clint tries to make his tongue cooperate enough to protest his innocence, but he’s already mostly gone, slipping away in a calm gray haze that sucks him down a long fuzzy tunnel until he knows no more.

His return to consciousness is accompanied by a vicious headache and the worst case of cotton mouth he’s ever had. He knows there’s no sense pretending to still be unconscious. Phil knows him too well, is aware of the very second when Clint’s minute changes in breathing patters signal his awareness. He doesn’t try to fool him as he would other captors. He groans softly and tries to wipe the bleariness out of his eyes with his hand. He can’t. A tremor courses through his body as he becomes aware of both his surroundings and his own situation. He is standing in the middle of an empty room, arms over his head, his wrists snugly encased in leather restraints. When he twists them experimentally, he feels the weight of the padlock holding them together. A heavy chain is bolted to the ceiling. He’s not wearing a shirt, his fatigue pants or his boots, but he’s been left in his boxer briefs. His arm guards have been removed as well. It’s hot, and he can feel sweat trickling down his spine to dampen the waistband of his underwear. Phil is standing across the room, leaning in a doorway, staring at Clint with no expression on his face and no acknowledgement in his eyes.

“M…Master?” asks Clint hoarsely, wracking his brains to try to remember if they’ve ever discussed a scene like this one. He doesn’t think so.

“The only thing I want to hear out of your fucking whore mouth,” hisses Phil softly, “Is who your contacts are and what you have told them.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” protests Clint, trying to stay calm and sound rational, but the expression on Phil’s face, like he doesn’t even know him, is horrible.

“Wrong answer,” says Phil softly, and stalks past Clint to a table behind him. Clint strains his neck but cannot see what Phil is doing. When the whip hisses and then lays him open in a long, white-hot line of fire from his shoulder diagonally to his hip, he throws his head back and yelps in pain. He’s panting when he feels his blood side warm from his skin to join his sweat wetting his waistband.

“Please,” he cries, “tell me what’s going on! Phil, I don’t….I don’t understand!”

Phil laughs mirthlessly. It is a sound laced liberally with rage and cruelty. Clint shivers at the sound of it and wonders if he’s somehow been transported to hell. Phil asks him again, in a voice that sounds calm and mildly curious, who his contacts are what he has told them. When Clint protests that he has no idea what his lover is talking about, the whip hisses once more and Clint shouts hoarsely in agony. This thing is nothing that came from their toy bag. It’s a tool, one designed to do nothing but break a person. It opens his skin like he’s made of tissue paper. The archer can withstand a great deal of pain. His mind and body are trained for it, both to withstand when it’s the job, and to revel in it when it’s from Phil or Tasha’s hands. He has no defenses against this onslaught, because it’s Phil doing this to him, hurting him, DAMAGING him, and he can’t understand why. He thinks it must be some kind of horrible mistake, hopes that it is, and that Phil doesn’t really believe Clint would betray him. He chokes back the bile rising in his throat at the sheer agony of the bullwhip’s bite, his eyes blurring with tears.

“Master,” he sobs, knowing that he sounds weak and frightened but unable to stop it, “please! You…you’re hurting me.”

“You think this hurts?” snarls Phi, stepping close to drag his fingernails down Clint’s back, the weeping wounds there singing in pain. “This is NOTHING. Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll stop. You’d like me to stop, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” cries Clint, because he doesn’t know how to lie to Phil. “I really…ahh…really do! But I don’t know what you want to hear, I’m sorry! I haven’t betrayed you. Or SHIELD. I’d never. You know that, Sir! PLEASE!”

“Make it easier on yourself, Agent Barton,” says Phil softly, his voice utterly devoid of emotion, so chilly it sends jagged shards of ice stabbing through Clint’s heart. “Give up your contacts, cooperate, and I’ll stop. Keep lying to me, and we’ll find out if that tight little ass feels as good on my cock dry and bleeding as it does when you’re begging for me like the whore we both know you are.”

Clint feels the bottom fall out of his world. This is nothing he’s got any idea how to handle. There are protocols, most of which Phil taught him, but then it was also Phil who broke down every last defense Clint’s ever had, and he’s utterly naked under this onslaught. He shudders as a sob rips from his body. He doesn’t know what to do, so he begs. He begs with everything he has for Phil to listen, to believe him, to tell him what’s going on.  Phil’s response is to rip Hawkeye’s boxer briefs from his trembling body and shove his head so he’s leaning forwards in his restraints. Dimly, he hears the sound of a zipper, and there is a hand on his hip.

“Please….” He whispers.

 

 

When he steps onto the helicarrier, currently hovering silently above Somalia, Phil frowns when he notes Jasper Sitwell’s presence. Noticing him right back, Jasper turns with a smile that’s downright salacious for the dignified agent.

“Back already Sir?” he asks, striding over to Phil and smiling. Phil frowns.

“Back?” he asks distractedly, looking out the window at the quiet countryside below. Quiet countryside that harbors dissidents intent on harming the peace Phil is sworn to protect. “And shouldn’t you be retrieving Agent Barton right about now?” he demands. He knows it’s Hawkeye, knows he hasn’t been Agent Barton for quite some time now, but his mind falls back easily into familiarities when on a SHIELD op, and Clint was Agent to him for much longer than he’s been Hawkeye. There’s a strange look on Jasper’s face, then he laughs a little uncomfortably.

“Ah…good one Sir,” he says. “I do have to say I’m surprised to see you back so soon though, I didn’t expect to see you again until at least tomorrow, if not longer.

“Agent Sitwell, I think the situation is a little bit too serious for jokes right now, don’t you? Where is Agent Barton? I need to debrief him and bring him up to date on our current intel.”

Jasper gets an even stranger look on his face.

“I thought Agent Barton was with you, Sir,” he says softly. Clearly, he is not joking.

“Why would you think something like that?” demands Phil, with the beginnings of nausea starting to swim around in his belly.

“Because I saw you drive off from the safehouse in a black SUV to retrieve him from the rendezvous point with my own eyes three hours ago, Sir.”

The nausea grows claws and purls inside him, ripping into his guts.

“Agent Sitwell,” he says quietly. “That wasn’t me.” He shoves past Jasper and rushes to a workstation, punching his code into the computer there and calling up surveillance for the safehouse. They both watch grimly as Phil and Jasper exchange pleasantries and a little innuendo and as Phil climbs into the truck and drives off with a wave and a smile.

“Sir,” stammers Jasper, eyeing Phil’s thunderous expression anxiously, “I….I…I swear to you, I thought…”

“Save it, Sitwell. You didn’t do anything wrong. If I didn’t know I’d been sitting in a Quinjet on my way here at the time this was happening, I’d think it was me too. It’s not your fault. The question is, who is it? And where have they taken Clint?” And why hasn’t he activated his panic button, thinks Coulson with dread, not poking at that too hard right now. If Clint thinks he’s with his handler and Master, then he has no reason to push the button. Phil runs through the footage again. He can’t see a single flaw in the disguise. It has to be a mutant, one with a power similar to Mystique’s. It’s not her, because he knows for a fact she’s in Saudi Arabia right now with a couple of other Brotherhood members, trying to make an arms deal. SHIELD has her on surveillance along with any other hostile metahumans they’re aware of. They even do their best to surveil Doom and Magneto, although the two masterminds generally foil these efforts fairly easily.

“Get me Fury on the line,” he snaps, turning to survey the agents on the command deck. “Assemble a strike team and have them ready to move out the moment we confirm Hawkeye’s location. Get Stark here, and I mean YESTERDAY. Notify the rest of the Avengers and begin a satellite sweep of this entire city. Now, agents!”

Oh Clint, he thinks, fear clutching at his throat. Where are you?

 

When Phil’s hands roughly spread him open, Clint moans in fear. When two thumbs thrust cruelly into his hole he bites his lip and chokes on another sob. It hurts so much. There’s no lubrication to ease their way, and Phil isn’t being careful. The tight ring of muscle at his entrance isn’t prepared at all, not even with arousal to turn some of the pain into desire. Phil’s breath is harsh in his ear. He pulls his thumbs apart, forcing Clint’s hole open wide. He howls in pain at the burning, dry stretch, feeling delicate skin tear and the sting of the salt in his blood.

“Ready to talk yet, Barton?” hisses Phil, pulling his thumbs out. One of them comes up to caress Clint’s cheek from behind, and he feels the wet streak of his own blood cooling on his skin when Phil stops. He groans softly when he feels the blunt head of Coulson’s cock push between his cheeks and nudge his aching hole.

“Please,” he whispers, tears choking his words, “I have not betrayed you, Master! Don’t….don’t do this. Please!”

“I think I’m glad you’re being stubborn, Clint,” hisses Phil, pressing forward a little bit so that the head of his cock nudges just inside the rim of Clint’s anus. “When I think of all the times I’ve had you in my bed, trusted you, given you everything I am, it makes me sick. Listening to you scream while I take it back is going to feel GOOD.”

With that, Phil snaps his hips forwards and SHOVES his cock into Clint’s sore, bleeding hole. Despite the cruel stretch from his thumbs moments before, Clint’s body isn’t ready, and there is nothing besides a little bit of blood to ease the way, so Clint’s unprepared opening clutches and grips against the intrusion. He shrieks in agony as he’s ripped open. Phil shoves, shoves, and shoves his cock inside, a fraction at a time, Clint’s asshole burning and clutching and quivering in horrible pain. His sobs are guttural and broken, but he can’t help it. If it was anyone but Phil, he could resist, could fight this, but he’s helpless. He closes his eyes and tries to go away inside his mind, to get away from the agony of the assault on his body and soul. Phil grunts and pants as he fucks into Clint’s unwilling body ruthlessly. One of his hands slides up Clint’s side in an obscene parody of a caress. His fingertips brush Clint’s collar and curl around it, gripping the silver chain.

“No,” whimpers Clint hopelessly. “No, please!”

“You don’t deserve to wear this,” snarls Phil. “You’re nothing to me.”

He rips the chain from Clint’s neck with a bright flare of pain when the well-made piece of jewelry cuts into the archer’s throat before it snaps.  Clint’s mind shatters into a howling black void of flying shards of agony that slice and shred at his brain and his heart. He hopes briefly as his vision blurs that he’s going to die sooner rather than later. Oh Tasha, he thinks bleakly just before darkness takes him, I’m sorry….

 

 

“It’s lucky I was already in Afghanistan,” says Tony gruffly, wordlessly shoving a tech out of his chair in front of one of the bigger consoles. Seeing the expression on Coulson’s face, the tech says nothing in protest, but scrambles up off the floor and goes to find another station. Tony taps into SHIELD’s security systems in moments, a fierce scowl on his face. His brown eyes are cold with rage. He looks up at Coulson. “I’ve never done it before Phil, I swear to you, but I wanna link Jarvis into the helicarrier’s main…”

“Do it,” says Phil, interrupting him. Tony’s eyebrows go up. “Do it, Stark. Whatever you need. Find him.”

Tony takes a split second to put a hand on Phil’s forearm. He grips it reassuringly. It is a wordless promise. He glances down at his helmet, sitting on the desk beside his right elbow.

“Jarvis?” he asks briskly.

“I am already on it, Sir,” says the AI smoothly from inside the helmet. “I heard Agent Coulson. And may I please say, Agent, that I will do everything within my considerable power to help bring Hawkeye back safely.”

“Thank you Jarvis,” says Phil tensely, turning at the doors to the command deck glide open and four people stride quickly into the room. Thor, Bruce and Steve look angry and worried and distressed to varying degrees as suit their personalities. The expression on Natasha’s face is positively glacial. He puts up a hand to stop any questions before they start. “We don’t have anything yet. But we will. We’ll find him. Just be ready.”

“Black Widow and I could begin a ground sweep while Thor starts an aerial one,” says Steve, clenching his fists with the desire to be doing something.

“I don’t want whoever has him alerted to the fact that we’re on to them yet,” says Phil, stopping him. “They could panic and kill him, Steve. You know that.”

Steve sighs and nods.

“I might be able to help,” says Bruce, his voice almost expressionless. His body practically vibrates with the effort he’s going to in order to remain in the driver’s seat and not let his anger at Clint’s capture bring his alter-ego to the fore. “I wrote the programming we used to start scanning for new vibranium deposits for the Wakandas. Clint carries a couple of vibranium arrow heads Tony designed for him. It may not be enough for the scanners to pick up, because it’s a miniscule amount, but I can try.”

“Do it,” says Phil, sparing Banner a brief smile of gratitude. “If anyone in the lab gives you grief, you have my permission to turn green and tie them into tiny knots. Just do it quickly and get back on the sensor array.” Bruce’s answering smile is grim, and then he is gone. He sends Steve to oversee the assembly of the strike team, because it gives the super soldier something to do, not because the SHIELD agents on board aren’t capable unto themselves. He figured if their egos can’t handle wondering if he’s implying they need a babysitter, they can deal with it and look for jobs as mall cops. Thor wordlessly goes to stand near one of the massive observation windows, glaring out as though he can discern Clint’s location through sheer force of will. If it could be done, Thor could probably pull it off. The force of that man’s will is pretty incredible. He doesn’t fidget or bother Phil for something to do. He stands still as a stone and he waits and watches, blue eyes flashing, promising bloody slaughter. Thor’s over a thousand years old. His personality may be somewhat impulsive, but he understands perfectly that much of the hunt involves just waiting. So he waits, and does not interfere. Phil turns to Natasha.

“I have agents on this, but if you need something to do, you probably know more of the right people to ask than they do,” he offers. He hesitates to order her to do anything, because her temper and fear are palpable in the air between them, and she is no longer his subordinate. Normally, Natasha hates makework.

“No, it’s all right,” she sighs. “I do need something to do. What is it?”

“I’ve got people contacting everyone we know in the metahuman and paranormal communities. Either someone has had plastic surgery so good it almost has to have been done by an alien culture, or we have a shapeshifter on our hands. We’ve run facial recognition software on the person Agent Sitwell thought was me, and it’s good enough for the software to identify me with a 99% certainty rating.”

Her eyebrows go up a little, though the tension around her eyes increases. He knows she’d been hoping what he had, at first. That Clint knows him well enough to see through the imposter. But at 99%, the double would fool Phil’s own family, even his mother. And that woman is terrifyingly difficult to fool.

“If it’s a shifter, it’s someone we don’t know. I’m hoping somebody else does. Reach out. Contact Richards and Xavier. See if you can locate T’Challa. Use any contacts you may have. If there’s a new shapeshifter out there, I want to know who they are.”

Natasha nods curtly and exits the deck without another word, her face set and composed, though her blue eyes are still flashing rage. He supposes it’s a good thing SHIELD rarely bothers with local authorities. They’d just be distressed with the lack of forensic evidence. With this many powerful beings as angry as they are right now, whoever’s taken Clint won’t even leave a stain behind when they’re done. He turns back to what Tony’s doing and clenches his fists.

Clint, he thinks urgently. Oh my love, it’s not me. Whatever he’s doing to you, it isn’t me. Hang on. We’re coming, just hang on!

 

 

Clint regains consciousness with a faint burning sensation in his nostrils and an odd chemical scent that fills his head and throat. It’s not unpleasant, just a little astringent. The flush of heat through his body identifies the effect for him instantly. He’s been given a popper. The myriad pains in his body make themselves known, including the deep throbbing ache of the thick cock in his ass, still violating him. He struggles weakly and pointlessly against the restraints on his wrists, and tries to arch his body away from the pain. Phil laughs at him. He LAUGHS. Clint’s mind gibbers uselessly at him, nothing making sense to him anymore. His body reacts to the alkyl nitrite, and he whimpers as his cock stiffens against his will and against probability. Phil cruelly angles his penetration of Clint’s body to rub against his prostate gland.

“Look at you,” he hisses viciously. “Getting off on this like the whore you’ve always been. Did you know your aptitude for that kind of work tested off the charts in your evaluation? Maybe when I’m done with you, we’ll keep you around for a while, sell that tight little hole to sick fucks we want to use or cultivate. Keep you pliant with drugs, stuff you with hard cock day after day, until you beg for it, cry for it, if only we’ll let you have another fix. It’s all you’re good for now, Barton.”

“No,” whispers Clint, tears blinding him, shaking and sweating. He wants to vomit. The pain is enormous, eating into his body like a toothache. It’s monstrous, and yet he is helpless not to react to the chemicals and the stimulation of his prostate gland. There is no pleasure in it, only humiliation. He sobs brokenly, knowing he’s going to come, won’t be able to stop it, and wishing it would kill him. It doesn’t. His body clenches and shudders, spasms wracking him as his seed is pulled from his unwilling body while he bites his lips until they bleed against the guttural moans.

“Slut,” hisses Phil in his ear, still fucking him. “Whore. _Traitor._ ”

“I’m not,” sobs Clint softly, hanging limply from his bound wrists, not caring about the pressure against the tendons and nerves he needs to shoot his bow accurately. He’s never going to draw it again anyway.

“What have you given them, Clint?” persists the voice in his ear. “Personal information about your team? Mission details? Passcodes to Avengers Mansion? The names of the individuals identified after the Vespucci operation as metahumans?”

Something about what Phil’s saying niggles in the back of Clint’s mind, but the pain presses into every corner, obscuring his thoughts. He can feel his blood trickling down his thighs. At least it provides lubrication, he thinks dazedly, laughing a little hysterically at the thought. Coulson’s cock slides into him easily now, although it still feels like fingers jabbing mercilessly into a gunshot wound. He knows what that feels like, has had his share of lead dug out of his flesh quick and dirty when there’s no other choice. No, he’s wrong. This is a lot worse. This is destroying everything about him, not just flesh. This is PHIL doing this to him. This is….

He freezes. The hissed questions register in his brain. Avengers Mansion doesn’t have passcodes. It’s a retinal scan with a palm print scanner. And Clint doesn’t know the names of the people rescued from Vespucci’s operation in China, beyond the two kids he’d helped rescue from the bastard’s own basement. Phil knows both of those things.

“How many people have you betrayed, Clint,” purrs the malicious voice into his ear. “Scum. Traitor. Whore.”

“Fuck,” says Clint distinctly, “You.”

He gathers his shaking legs under him and braces himself on them, slamming his head back into the face of the man behind him. The man who is NOT Phil, for all that he looks and sounds exactly like him and knows enough about him to play the part pretty convincingly. He grins fiercely at the sound of bone and cartilage crunching against the back of his skull, even though the impact and sting of the man’s teeth smashing against his head and cutting into his scalp a little hurts.  The man howls and staggers back a little. Clint reaches up and grips the chains attached to his restraints, pulling his feet off the ground and spinning. His legs whip around the waist of his torturer, and he resolutely doesn’t think about the thick cock bobbing between the imposter’s thighs, smeared with Clint’s blood. His muscled thighs pull the man close in a parody of an embrace, snugging their hips together, smearing Clint’s come over the stranger’s belly. Clint’s grin widens maniacally as he looks into those smoky blue eyes and takes in the blood pouring from the well-known nose and lips. He leans close as though for a kiss and fastens his teeth onto the man’s nose. The imposter shrieks thickly as his already-broken nose is torn by the furious archer’s sharp teeth. Clint grinds down hard, rending skin and cartilage and making mindless animal sounds of rage in his chest. There’s a sense of tearing, and a muffled shriek from his victim, and then he spits out a bloody gobbet of flesh, his teeth startlingly white in his blood-filled mouth. His fevered brain momentarily entertains itself with thoughts of systematically tearing the man’s face off bite by bite, but that won’t get him out of here. Using the powerful muscles of leg and core, he forces the imposter to bend, screaming and struggling, until Clint can let go of his waist for a fraction of a second and whip his legs around the bastard’s throat instead, squeezing tightly and staring mercilessly into the bulging eyes.

“Keys,” he hisses. “Now.”

Wounded, shocked and terrified, the man scrabbles at his pocket until he comes up with a small padlock key. Glancing up at the lock on his restraints, Clint decides it looks like it’s probably the correct key. He squeezes harder. The blue eyes bulge and the man struggles to speak, fumbling and dropping the key. Clint cocks his head and looks down at it with interest.

“Oh look,” he rasps, voice raw with screaming and grief, both of which are now subsumed by hatred, “you don’t have anything I need now.”

“N…no….ngh!” gasps his tormentor, eyes widening in fear as Clint’s thigh muscles flex. He’s gotta admit to himself that he kinda loves the look of this, his spent cock hitting the fucker in the chin while he stares his death in the eyes, making him look foolish and ridiculous. He only allows himself a moment to revel, then efficiently snaps the man’s neck with a quick wrench and twist of his legs. The acrid smell of urine fills his nostrils as the dying man’s bladder voids itself. Clint absently lets the body fall with a heavy fwhomp to the floor, steely eyes searching the floor for the key. Spotting it, he snags it with deft toes and pulls himself up, legs going over his head so he can grip the key in his fingers. It takes a couple of minutes of impatient fumbling for him to angle his fingers enough to insert the key into the padlock. He finds he doesn’t have enough room in his shackles to actually turn it. He lets himself rest for a few minutes, hurting and panting and shaking. He hasn’t seen anyone else, and doesn’t think he’s going to, but he still can’t afford to waste much time. There’s at least one accomplice, because he’s replaying some things in his mind and is pretty sure he has a handle on what the interrogation was about, so he needs to move. Grabbing the chains again, he pulls up once more and uses his toes to turn the key, biting his lip and concentrating. This isn’t the first time he’s gotten himself out of locked restraints, and he wonders why it seems to be a problem for the bad guys to remember that the archer’s also a fucking _acrobat._ But hey…gift horse, mouth. He’s not in the best condition ever, so he only barely manages to slap his hands down to take the impact when the sudden release of the padlock drops him to the concrete floor. He grimaces as he comes face to…fluid…with the evidence of his torture, splatters and shining dark droplets and tiny puddles of blood and come only inches from his face. Though the coppery tang and musty scent are not normally ones he finds unpleasant, he wrinkles his nose and is thankful he’s managed not to do a faceplant into the mess. He scrambles back and staggers to his feet, looking around the room for his stuff. The empty coffee shop basement is a plain room of concrete and block, windowless and lighted only by a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. His clothing and weapons are on a small wooden table along one wall. He stumbles as he approaches, panting in frustration and swallowing pained whimpers as the myriad agonies of his body make themselves known. He’s covered with sluggishly weeping whip marks from shoulders to knees. He glances at the whip, coiled abandoned on the floor beyond the body of his kidnapper. It’s an ugly thing, nearly two inches thick at its base and six feet long, the leather rough and ridged to abrade flesh. His glance passes over the body and his eyes widen a little. Phil Coulson is gone, and in his place is the slowly cooling corpse of a stranger. This man is a little shorter, a little less muscular than Phil, and considerably younger. His hair is a mousy dirty blond, and his wide, shocked empty eyes are hazel. Clint shudders and refuses to let his gaze linger between the man’s legs. He reaches with trembling fingers for his clothes, and barely manages to pull his pants on over his shaking legs. His fingers grow thick and clumsy, and he can’t make the button cooperate, so he simply clutches the waistband and pokes through his shirt, searching for the button on the breast pocket. He’s sobbing a little in frustration by the time he finds it among the uncooperatively limp fabric and mashes it between his fingers. He wants out of here, but he doesn’t know where here is, and who is on the streets above him. He hurts everywhere, can hardly bear having his fatigue pants touching his skin. He’s still bleeding inside, can feel the material of his pants getting wet and clinging damply between his legs. His legs shake again and he muffles a sob of frustration, taking an unsteady step towards the rickety stairs. His legs give out and he falls to his knees. He can’t bear the thought of lying there on this floor that is defiled by what has been done to him, and the presence of his torturer’s corpse and bodily fluids, so he stops where he is, swaying resolutely on his knees with his fly gathered in one fist and his other hand braced against the concrete block wall, head bowed and silent tears of pain coursing hotly down his cheeks. The stinging at his throat comes to his attention and he lets go of the wall to clutch at his neck in horror. His eyes search the floor for the gleam of silver.

 

“I’ve got a search running for abandoned properties within the city limits,” reports Tony tersely, fingers flying. “They might not want to take him somewhere that’s got an owner on record, and god knows there are enough abandoned buildings around here since the war. Sweepers have ascertained that a vehicle matching the SUV’s description did enter town at about the right time for Hawkeye’s retrieval. We’ll find it, Phil.”

“I know,” says Phil tensely, trying not to think about how much time has passed. The sensors calibrated to look for vibranium can’t pick up anything but Cap’s shield. They’ve found out who the likeliest perpetrator of the kidnapping is, for all the good it does them. A skrull-human bastard cross, recently fled to earth from his home planet where he was believed to be inferior, the newcomer had been given the name Kurt Weiss by the Hydra handler who’d recruited him. Not a great deal is known about him since his arrival, but Natasha had made contact with Stephen Strange and been freely given this newfound information along with an apology for not sharing it sooner, due to intelligence still being in the process of being gathered. Strange can be an oddly formal duck, but he’s a good ally, and Phil’s certain he wasn’t withholding the information out of any cagey desire to have some kind of upper hand. Strange often thinks his own way of doing things is best, but there’s not an ounce of hubris left in him since his transition into the Sorcerer Supreme.

They have so many tiny pieces of the puzzle, but none that join together enough to show them the picture revealing Clint’s whereabouts. Phil growls in frustration and bangs his fist against the wall he’s leaning on while he watches Tony work.

A young tech bursts into view, panting excitedly.

“Sir,” he cries, “we’ve just picked up Hawkeye’s panic signal! We have him Sir!”

Things explode into action after that, the strike team mobilizing, with Steve and Tasha muscling unapologetically into the middle of it and rushing into Quinjets. Tony sprints off to suit up. Bruce shoots Phil a rueful grin and runs out to the flight deck, changing skin tone and size as he goes. Phil sees him leap off the side of the helicarrier before he’s even all the way through the transition, trusting that Bruce knows the Hulk’s abilities well enough to be sure he’s going to be done before he hits the ground. Phil looks at the God of Thunder.

“Thor,” he says, taking a step towards the tall blond man, opening his mouth to ask a huge favor of him. He finds himself pulled roughly against a muscular chest, Thor grinning madly down into his eyes.

“Do you need to ask? Hang on, Son of Coul. We’ll reach him first, I swear it.”

And they’re out a door and flying through the air so fast tears stream from his eyes and his skin feels instantly chapped, his clothing flapping wildly. He holds onto Thor for dear life, even though the admonition was probably pointless. Thor’s steely arm is wrapped around him firmly, and he’s only going to fall if something randomly cuts it off, an event which is unlikely in the extreme. He shouts directions directly into Thor’s ear as he receives them through his ear bud, and Thor follows them efficiently, nodding curtly now and then to show he’s understood. They land within less than ten minutes in a run-down section of town, standing in front of what appears to be an abandoned coffee shop. Phil’s gun is in his hand before both of Thor’s feet touch the ground. They don’t bother with securing a perimeter or checking the building for hostiles. Phil’s going in behind a demigod. That’s better than a riot shield and a dozen strike teams any day. Thor slaps the front door down with a lazy shove and it crashes inwards with a puff of dust. The shop is empty, but there are footprints in said dust, leading through the main room to a door behind the sagging counter. Thor puts his ear to the door for a second, then opens it a little less forcefully, not as sure of not hitting Clint with it as he was about the front door. Behind the door there are rickety stairs leading down to the basement. Phil cocks his head sharply when he hears a muffled sob. It is one he knows as well as he knows his own heartbeat. He has no sense at all of anyone else down there, and catches the faint but unmistakable scent of death in the musty air. He pushes at Thor, who steps aside for him, since trying to actually shove him out of the way is a little like trying to move a mountain. Phil clatters down the stairs, his gun in his hand and his heart in his mouth. He sees the dead shapeshifter in the middle of the floor almost immediately. The mess on the floor near the body makes his throat tighten with fear and rage.

“Clint,” he calls anxiously. The sob repeats itself, and his head turns to orient on the sound as he reaches the foot of the stairs.

 

 

He is on his hands and knees in a corner when the door slams open. He can’t see through his tears, though he keeps wiping them away with the back of his arm and trying to focus. He’s been searching through the dust and abandoned mouse nests and litter of the corners of the basement for what seems like hours. Somehow in his mind the thought has coalesced that he _has_ to find his collar before Phil comes. Gentle hands touch his shoulders and he flinches.

“No, no, no,” he whispers desolately.

“Clint,” chokes Phil, falling to his knees and wrapping his arms around the archer. Clint shakes in his arms and struggles to get free, to keep looking.

“I have to find it,” he wails brokenly, and feels Phil flinch at the wrecked sound.

“Find what, baby?” croons Phil, hands gentle on Clint’s shoulders, avoiding the whip strokes as best he can. It’s hard to do, because there are a lot of them, and Clint makes a wounded, animal noise in the back of his throat when his struggles drag one of Phil’s hands across his torn flesh. Clint’s hands come up to clutch at his throat as though he’s hiding it, and Phil realizes what he means. The bastard has torn off the archer’s collar and tossed it away somewhere.

“Oh love,” he murmurs, pressing his lips against Clint’s messy, soaked hair, “it doesn’t matter. I’ll get you a new one.”

“No,” cries Clint in a panic. “NO! I have to…I have to….”

A large hand comes into view in front of their faces, fingers dangling the broken ends of the beautiful silver chain Phil had placed around Clint’s throat over a year ago and which has only come off on one occasion since then. An occasion upon which he’d ended up in a condition much the same as this one. Clint gasps and seizes the chain, looking up at Thor gratefully. Thor smiles gently, then murmurs softly to Phil that he will secure the door and wait for the others to arrive. Phil discovers that Clint’s condition isn’t precisely the same as when they’d found him in Vespucci’s basement room when he pulls Clint into his lap for a hug and the younger man lets out a thin scream of pain as his ass comes into contact with Phil’s thighs, wrenching himself away to crouch in the corner like a wild animal.

“I’m sorry Sir, I’m sorry,” he cries miserably when he sees realization dawn on his Master’s face and sees the horror in his eyes.

“No,” says Phil fiercely, “don’t you dare apologize for any of this. I am so sorry Clint. Will you let me touch you?”

Clint’s momentarily confused by the question.

“You…I….you can touch me any way you want,” he gasps. “I belong to you. It…I’m just….he….I’m disgusting.”

“No,” says Phil definitely, crawling in the dust to put his arms carefully around Clint, and it feels so good that Clint sighs and lays his head on Phil’s shoulder, pretty sure it can’t be true what Phil’s saying but grateful to him for overlooking it anyway. He recognizes dimly that he’s in shock and not thinking too straight, so he stops trying to. “No, you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

“I knew you’d save me,” whispers Clint, breathing deep of the smell of Phil’s skin as he nuzzles his face into his neck. Phi huffs out a rueful laugh.

“I don’t think I can claim this one, baby boy,” he says as he hears the door open and voices above. “You saved yourself. We’re just your ride home.”

“Is the person who did this to him dead?” asks Natasha coldly, standing over them, the only Person Thor will allow into the room. Clint laughs weakly.

“Yeah,” he says faintly. “I bit off his nose and broke his neck.”

“That’s so cool,” says Tasha admiringly, crouching down to touch them both, her fingers carding through Clint’s hair because she doesn’t see any wounds on his scalp, at least not until she touches the cut from Weiss’s teeth being smashed against Clint’s skull and pulls back apologetically. He whines a little at the loss and she shrugs, stroking him again but avoiding the back of his head.

“There’s another somewhere,” says Clint vaguely, struggling to make his sluggish brain work.

“Where?” demands Tash sharply.

“I don’t know,” he says, frowning. “But he’d ask me a question and then he’d pause for a little bit. Like he was listening for something, and then I’d feel this weird….ugh…like spiders crawling around in my brain….And he’d do it even when he was just…talking about something about the Avengers. Or SHIELD. It’s like….” He growls in frustration. Phi and Tasha exchange glances.

“Telepath,” they say together, and then Tasha is gone, running up the stairs and snapping orders at agents and Avengers alike. They mobilize quickly, organizing a search for a nearby mind-reader. Thus Clint is left alone with Phil to wait for medical, and he allows himself the luxury of falling apart just a little bit now that it is really over. Phil holds him carefully and whispers to him how proud he is.

“I should have known it wasn’t you,” he whispers miserably.

“Did he look like me when you killed him?” asks Phil curiously.

“Yeah.”

“Then I’d say you figured it out just fine, beautiful boy.”

“Not in time,” chokes Clint, shame and horror crowding up inside him, the desolation of loss he’d felt for those hours of believing Phil was rejecting him filling him with guilt, the other man’s use of his body horrifying him as realization of his betrayal dawns. “Oh god,” he moans, “he….Master, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, and it…it hurt so bad. I’m sorry.” Rising panic sets its claws in him and rends his thoughts, sending them scattering like dry leaves. Suddenly he can’t bear for Phil to be touching him, and he struggles wildly to get away, to not allow what he’s become to touch his master’s skin. Phil tries to hold on, but he can’t do it without hurting Clint further. The medical team arrives, and strong white-gloved hands come out of the darkness to grip him tightly. He screams and thrashes wildly, but they hold him down. He’s begging the man not to do it when he feels the sting of a needle in his arm and everything turns white.


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The events in this chapter, so it's not confusing, take place before the events in Thor: The Dark World
> 
> I am so sorry this took so long! Illness and some other stuff has really gotten in the way lately, but I'm getting back to normal!

Consciousness returns slowly, a strange sort of alertness allowing him to parse the various sensations and scents and textures as they bloom into his awareness. It’s a strange twilight alertness, and one he understands corresponds with “hospital” and “anesthesia.” The sharp, metallic taste in his mouth overlying a terrible thirst, his tongue feeling swollen and alien inside his mouth. Light which is too bright. Recurrent beeping and hissing sounds. Voices, not at his side, but not far away either. Frustrating lassitude in his limbs so that although he can see and hear and feel, he knows they will not respond to him, not even if he needs them to. Concentrating hard, he focuses on making one of his hands lift off the rough cotton blanket. He thinks he makes a sound, but he’s not sure.

Immediately, people are at his side. One is a nurse or doctor, he’s not sure which, asking him calm questions about what his name is and does he know where he is. He glares at the person, or thinks he does anyway.

“My name is Malcolm Reynolds,” he slurs irritably, wishing he sounded as snide as he feels. “And I’m in a medical facility on Ariel and you’re doing gross experiments on my brain.”

“He’s okay,” says a voice, one which sounds amused, and familiar. Natasha. He looks for her. His head doesn’t seem to want to turn.

“Um, Agent Romanoff, I’m afraid you’re going to need to let me make that determination. The patient is clearly still delusional.” The medical-type person’s voice is condescending and a little prissy.

“Really?” says Clint, feeling pretty pleased because there is definite actual sarcasm in the word.

“It’s from Firefly, you imbecile,” says Natasha, who tolerates being condescended to exactly not at all. “He knows who he is; he’s fucking with you because he thinks they’re stupid questions.”

“It’s all right, Doctor,” says another voice, one that makes his heart monitor beep a little faster. Phil. “Agent Romanoff is correct. We’d like some privacy, if you please.”

“Let me take his vitals,” says the doctor irritably. He does so, and walks away, muttering.

“Asshat,” says Clint at the retreating back. Natasha snickers, and Phil chuckles a little, and then both of his hands are taken, one of them on each side, and he can see their faces better, holding his hands and looking down at him with concern.

“How do you feel?” murmurs Phil softly.

“Thirsty,” says Hawkeye honestly. A bendy straw is brought to his lips and he sips. The cold water is the best thing he’s ever tasted in his life. He sighs and leans back against the pillows. “Thanks. So…um….why am I here?”

“How much do you remember?” asks Phil gently. Clint’s body feels like it has been dipped suddenly in ice water.

“All of it,” he whispers, unable to prevent the shudder that rocks him.

“You had some…um…damage. Inside? That needed to be repaired,” says Phil, his voice thick with some emotion Clint cannot name. Possibly because there isn’t a name for it, not a single one anyway. Rage, sorrow, pain, those are all part of it. And yet not enough to describe the actual tone. He knows he’s never seen Phil this angry, and it scares him a little. No, that’s not the right word. It’s not. He isn’t afraid of Phil.

“Oh. Okay. Am I…”

“The doctor said you’ll be fine,” says Phil quickly. “Although he said you can’t be…ah…”

“Penetrated,” supplies Natasha, making Clint once again grateful for Tasha’s pragmatism. He hates watching Phil beat around the bush like this.

“Yes. For at least a month.”

“Great,” mutters Clint darkly. “That’s awesome. Cause not getting to come for a month is exactly what I wanted. Again.”

“Nobody said anything about that,” says Natasha with a small smile. “And we have a new compound that does amazing things for speeding wound recovery, on external wounds anyway, and so your back is already more than half-healed and should be fine in another day or so.”

He sags a little in relief. It’s not that he isn’t capable of being celibate, it’s just that the complete and helpless HOTNESS he feels when he’s with either of his lovers (or both, especially both) isn’t something, now that he’s found it, that he has any desire to resist. Or do without. On the heels of this comes an unfriendly voice in his head that wonders if it’s not a good thing he can’t get fucked in his ass for a while, because he’s not sure how that’s going to make him feel right now, and in a month he should be able to put the memory of the shifter who had raped him with Phil’s body out of his head. Probably. He turns his head on his pillow, feeling a lot better because most of his body seems willing to respond to his requests now, and looks at Phil. His lover’s face looks older and more tired than he ever remembers seeing it. Ravaged, is the word that comes to Clint’s mind.

“Hey,” he whispers, reaching out to lay his hand on the stubbly cheek of the man who holds his heart. “I’m okay.”

“Do you want us to let you rest?” asks Tasha softly.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “No…will you both just….stay with me?”

He goes to sleep, wondering why it is that you always wake up from anesthesia exhausted, with their hands in his, and allows himself to hope he hasn’t told Phil a lie.

When he wakes up, Phil is gone, and Natasha is dozing lightly in her chair. She opens her eyes instantly when he moves, and sits up straight.

“Hey,” she says with a small smile.

“Hey back,” he says softly. “Where’s Phil?”

“Meetings he couldn’t reschedule. He’ll be back in an hour or so.”

“How long did I sleep?” he asks, yawning hugely and running his free hand through his hair.

“Close to three hours,” she says, watching his face intently. He sighs.

“I majorly fucked up this time, didn’t I?” he asks sadly.

“That’s just it, Clint. We’re not sure. Okay, we know the guy who took you and tortured you looked and sounded like Phil. From the looks of you, he worked you over for quite a while before you figured out he was an imposter”

“Well yeah , he finally slipped up by asking me some questions Phil wouldn’t have asked.”

“So until then you thought he was Phil?”

“Yeah, it was pretty fucking grim.”

“Did you use your safeword, Clint? When he started doing things to you that Phil wouldn’t have done?”

“Hell, Tasha, he was doing things to me that Phil wouldn’t have done from the start! No, I didn’t safeword.”

“Then yeah, you fucked up majorly. Clint, you might have figured this out sooner if you had!”

He looks at her blankly.

“No I really wouldn’t. I didn’t safeword because it wasn’t a scene! I did believe it was Phil, and I believed he must have come across some really compelling evidence that I was a traitor, so I knew a safeword wouldn’t matter for shit. “

She thinks about this for a few seconds and nods.

“Okay, I’ll give you that one. But Clint…that you’d buy that Phil would believe you’d betrayed him without ASKING you about it first? That’s what’s got him tied up in knots.”

Well fuck. She has him there. He has no good response to this.

“It’s not because of him,” he protests.

“I know it’s not,” says Phil, stepping into the room with his usual, slightly creepy ninja-like silence. There are fucking TAPS under the toes of his ferragamo oxfords, for God’s sake, to protect the soles. How do they not make a sound?

“Meetings let out early?” asks Clint a little desperately, because he doesn’t want to talk to Phil about this. Not now. Maybe not ever. And the look on Phil’s face tells him it’s not an option.

“I expedited,” says Phil blandly. He sits down in the bedside chair Tasha’s not occupying and looks at her significantly. She stands up and leaves the room without a word, but she squeezes Clint’s hand supportively before she goes. He sighs.

“I’m so sorry, Sir, I…”

“Stop,” says Phil tersely, and Clint flinches. Phil sees it, and the muscles around his eyes tighten, the only outward sign of his emotions. Otherwise he remains expressionless. “Do not apologize to me for what happened to you. It wasn’t your fault. I understand perfectly why you didn’t attempt to use your safeword, even if Natasha didn’t. You believed it would have done no good, which was true of course, but not because I believed you to be a traitor. Because it WASN’T ME.”

Phil rarely raises his voice, and when he does, junior agents on three floors wet their pants. Possibly a few senior agents as well. Clint cringes a little, hating himself for doing it. He doesn’t respond to Phil. It wasn’t really a question anyway. Phil sighs heavily and continues, but he stops yelling.

“Your handling of the incident was exemplary. You revealed no sensitive information, and you reacted with great courage and decisive action once you ascertained that your captor was in fact a hostile. But Clint…is your trust in me so shakable that you honestly believe I’d do something like that to you? Even if I really believed you to be a traitor?”

Clint opens his mouth to reassure Phil, but he can’t. Because he HAD believed it was Phil doing those things to him, at the time.

“It isn’t about me trusting you,” he says hoarsely, feeling a little like he wants to cry, because the expression on Phil’s face is stricken with sorrow and horror.

“You still…after all this time…you still have so little faith in yourself. That’s what made you believe it. Isn’t it, Clint?” asks Phil softly.

“I…”

“ISN’T IT?”

“Yes,” whispers Clint miserably. He doesn’t want to meet Phil’s sorrowful eyes but also cannot keep from being drawn to him, so he gives his lover little eye-flicks that don’t quite make eye contact but take in Phil’s expression anyway. “I can still hear him. You know?”

“Loki,” whispers Phil.

“Yeah. He was in my head the whole time. Sharing everything that happened with me. Letting me have enough of a corner of my brain to be sick and furious and horrified and to just…to want to die. I wanted to die, to get him out. He swore it was the only way we’d ever be separated. Made me tell him how I loved him. How he was my everything. My god. Made sure I meant it, and yet he left a little piece of me screaming in my head.  He told me sometime he was going to let me go just long enough to show me how you’d all come to hate me, and then he’d take me back and use me to kill you all. Slow. So you’d have plenty of time to see me watching you die. He’d turn you all against me and then let me have my own mind back to reap the benefit of your hate before he killed me, once he got bored. I thought…I thought it might be true, you know? That he’d made me betray SHIELD and I just didn’t remember, because he can still use me if he really wants to.”

“If all that’s true, it’s no wonder you felt as you did. But Clint…” says Phil, pain evident in his voice and the very set of his shoulders and tense lines of his body. “If that’s so…why aren’t you still seeing SHIELD’s therapist on-staff? She’s very good, and very discrete.”

“I hate shrinks, sir. You know that,” says Clint uncomfortably, hunching his shoulders defensively.

“You told me you’d been cleared,” says Phil keenly, and suddenly Clint can’t look away from that intense blue stare. It pins him to his bed like a bug on a card, and he squirms like one.

“I was,” he says, knowing it sounds sullen and defensive, but not able to help it. “Do you think, as long as I’ve been doing this, I don’t know exactly what to say to clear a psych eval?”

“And cleanup after the fight with the Chitauri, in addition to physical recuperation, enabled you to put it off long enough to sound convincing. Keep your hands from shaking,” said Phil coolly.

“Well,” says Clint, tentatively trying out his ‘look how cute I am how can you be mad at this” face, “yeah.”  It doesn’t appear to impress Phil at all.

“Fake it til you make it, right?” says Phil softly. There’s a dangerous gleam in his eye. Clint nods miserably, feeling about ten inches tall.  Phil stands up slowly. He leans down towards Clint, and his hand flashes out to fist tightly in the neck of the hospital gown, yanking Clint off his pillow so that he’s nose to nose with a very angry Phil Coulson.

“You are grounded, Agent Barton,” he hisses through his teeth. “Benched. On Administrative leave. You pick. As it turns out, you’re STILL compromised by the alien entity known as Loki. Director Fury and the Avengers Initiative can do without you until you can look me in the eye and tell me he’s gone. That he has no power over you. That you’re able to come to my bed without his specter overseeing us. You fool. You are beautiful, and smart, and deadly, and clever. You’re the best fucking agent SHIELD has ever had. Bar none. Bar NONE, do you hear me? YOU brought Romanov in. Without you, she’d be cooling on a morgue slab having her brain dissected right now. One frozen slice at a time!”

“You…you can’t do that,” protests Clint, hating that his voice sounds weak, because technically Phil really _can’t_  bench him. He’s an Avenger now, not a SHIELD agent, and Coulson isn’t his handler anymore. Phil lets go of the neck of his hospital gown abruptly and Clint sags back onto the pillow. His wrist is seized violently and something slaps hard into his hand, curling around it and stinging sharply. He looks down. His collar. Of course they’d have had to remove it for surgery. You can’t wear metal of any kind on an operating table.

“This,” snarls Phil coldly, “says I can. And when I inform Director Fury that you’ve confessed to me that you can still feel Loki’s presence in your mind, you can be damned sure he’s going to back me up.”

“Don’t,” whispers Clint desperately, bleakly. “Please Sir…don’t tell him. I…it took me too long to believe they didn’t all see him when they looked at me as it was. If they knew…I couldn’t…”

“You take administrative leave and I won’t,” says Phil, and there is tenderness in his voice now.

“All right.”

“Clint,” says Phil softly, “it is not going to be easy to work through the aftermath of your…” he takes a deep breath and says it out loud finally, in a little bit of a rush, “your rape. And if you come to that process with self-esteem issues this massive in your way, I’m not sure we can do it, I’m really not.”

“Okay.” Clint takes a deep, quavering breath, because he has no idea how to do what Phil’s asking of him, he really doesn’t, but when he looks into his Master’s eyes he knows he’s going to have to figure it out.

 

In the end, when he’s released from the hospital, he calls and rents the cabin in the Smokies where Tash had stolen him and Thor and Jane away for a few days and so many awesome things had happened. He has no bad memories of the place, not one, and he thinks maybe the peace of those ancient mountains will help him find what he needs. When he climbs the spiral stair to the uppermost room of the three-story cabin and steps out onto its deck, he remembers making love to Natasha in the invitingly soft bed with its beautiful quilt, and fucking her out here under the stars and feeing like he was flying, and he smiles. It’s a real smile, and he tilts his face up to the sun and closes his eyes and lets it fall on his face like a healing balm. It feels so good, so comforting somehow, that he tugs his shirt over his head and holds out his hands as though he could cup more of the light in them and take more of it into himself. On the heels of that thought he shucks off his jeans after toeing off his shoes. He’s on the top of the mountain. The nearest cabin is several hundred feet below. Its him and the birds and squirrels and frankly, they don’t seem all that interested.  The light feels good on all of his skin, and he stands there silently and lets it bathe him while he tries his best to reacquaint himself with his own body, to see if he can still stand it. The wounds on his back are healed, but the scars from the brutal whipping tug a little when he stretches. He catalogues this and finds it doesn’t really bother him. He’s been tortured before, and may be again, and he can turn from this memory as easily as he has turned from the others. Part of the job, and for some reason, not one of his issues. He thinks it’s probably because he’s wired differently when it comes to pain, that memories of it don’t have a lot of power over him. It’s not that torture turns him on. Broken bones and feeling his own blood hot on his skin have never been his kinks, it’s just that his brain catalogues all pain more easily than most people, and maybe that’s because he likes certain kinds of pain a very great deal indeed. Maybe it’s not, but he checks the memory of that hissing black whip off the list of things they’re going to have to deal with, because it doesn’t have any power over him. He stretches for a while, slow and easy, partly to start to work on breaking up the scar tissue, and partly to avoid the rest of this physical inventory he’s decided to do here under the gentle golden eyes of the Smoky Mountain sun. He doesn’t avoid it for long though, because he misses Phil like he’d miss his hands if he lost them, and if his time has come to face personal demons, then he’s going to fucking do it. He looks down the front of his body and his mouth quirks in a small grin. Thinking about being with Tasha here is a good memory. Not a goddamn thing wrong with his cock. Nope. His hand slides lazily down his warm skin and encircles its girth. He sighs softly as his hand moves slowly and desire builds. Inevitably, with desire come thoughts of Phil, and so he allow himself for the first time since he woke up in the hospital to really think about being with Phil, with taking Phil’s heavy cock into his body. As long as what he thinks about are memories of everything before….that day…he’s fine. He thinks it’s an okay sign that his memories don’t seem to be tainted in any way. He takes a deep breath and lets his other hand slide back over his hip and cup the curve of his left ass cheek. His throat tightens a little. No penetration, the surgeon had ordered sternly, for one month. And he isn’t, he won’t, but he slides his fingertips between his cheeks and touches himself, the small, tightly furled pucker of his asshole. His body breaks out into a cold sweat and he gasps for breath. Okay then. He removes his hand and lets go of his rapidly softening dick, forcing his breathing to slow. It’s a little harder to force the memory of the shifter splitting open his unwilling body, of the sick miserable pain and his despair at being treated that way by someone he had thought he could trust. Anger rises up in him and he lets it, because although he may be a moron about some stuff, he recognizes that the anger is healthy, and that at least a part of him is already starting to understand on a gut level that the person who had done this to him was NOT his lover and it pisses him the fuck off that the son of a whore had used his love against him.

He puts his clothes back on and goes into the cabin to make himself something to eat.  He’s not ready to think about Loki yet. Not today. Facing his most recent experience for a little while is enough for now, and though he’s shown himself that he’s going to have some issues to resolve, he’s also shown himself that they’re not insurmountable ones. He makes a fluffernutter sandwich because Thor isn’t here to take it away from him, and grins at the memory of the bear. That night he soaks away a little more of the stiffness in his back in the hot tub and he remembers what happened in this particular hot tub and his dick comes pretty easily back to life. Fuck, but he misses Tash right now. When he pads naked back into the cabin and turns on the shower to wash off the chlorine, it takes him exactly a dozen firm strokes of his aching erection to paint the jewel-bright tiles of the shower with his seed, gasping Natasha’s name when he comes. When he sleeps, he does dream, and the dreams are bad ones, and the man who rapes him in his dream sometimes wears Phil’s face and sometimes wears Loki’s. He awakens with a strangled cry and sits up in the bed, the quilt tangled around his legs, running his fingers through his hair so that it stands up in outrageous spikes. His hands shake a little when he reaches for the bedside table for the glass of water and the bottle of mild sedatives he’s been prescribed. Normally Clint hates medication that makes him less than alert, but he also recognizes that he’s not going to be able to face any of his demons if he’s exhausted. He feels safe here, so he swallows one of the pills, and when it starts to make him drowsy, he lies back down and closes his eyes. This time, he doesn’t dream.

The next morning he begins what becomes a pattern for him over the next few days. He wakes up and emails Natasha to let her know he’s okay, then goes down and fixes himself breakfast. He’s not any kind of a cook, but he can manage scrambled eggs or toaster waffles or a bowl of cereal just fine. He runs after breakfast, and doing so on the steep little mountain road is a lot tougher than the track at SHIELD or the paths of Central Park, so he calls two miles more than enough. There are a couple of fallen trees near the cabin, so after he calls the management company to make sure it’s okay, he starts in on cutting and splitting them into logs that he adds to the supply of firewood stacked along one outer wall of the hexagonal building. The work feels good to him, and he imagines himself sweating out bad memories. It feels kind of dumb at first, but after a few tries he thinks maybe it’s helping a little. Not enough, not even close, but at least he can tell himself he’s doing SOMEthing, because he’s honestly at a loss as to how to exorcize Loki from his brain. He goes down the mountain at least once every day because he thinks it might get too easy to just hide himself away up there in the sky and he doesn’t think that would be much help to him, so he walks around a little among tourists and he tentatively tries to tell himself that it WAS his arrow which had caused Loki to crash his Chitauri air bike and it was because of that crash that Tony had managed to stall the fucker and give them time to get there and subdue him. Well, for the Hulk to subdue him. These tourists certainly know about that day, and every now and then he thinks somebody recognizes him, but nobody says anything. He looks at their faces and he starts to tell himself that they are here today, taking their vacations, because he helped stop the invasion, and that if he had not, every face he sees might very well have become…well, whatever the Chitauri had planned for them. Food? Slaves? Corpses? The experiment gets off to a rocky start, because in his head a silky voice reminds him that the entire invasion wouldn’t have happened in the first place if it hadn’t been for him. That Clint alone had made it all possible, had helped steal the tesseract and had helpfully provided the iridium needed to stabilize it, and had then single-handedly disabled the helicarrier. Every day he tells this voice to go fuck itself because in the end it had lost and they had won. He’s not sure he’s starting to believe it, but he keeps trying anyway.

On the fifth night he sleeps without the help of any medication and what wakes him up in the middle of the night is not a bad dream, but the soft creak of a floorboard. He is instantly awake and fully alert, motionless as he watches the doorway to the bedroom, ears straining for another sound. When a dark silhouette appears, he relaxes because he’d recognize that shape anywhere.

“Tasha,” he breathes softly as she seems to almost drift across the floor to the bed, so perfect is her grace. He doesn’t know at what point she’s taken her clothes off, but when she slides under the quilt next to him in the dark, she is naked and warm and he is instantly aching for her. Their mouths find each other unerringly and she kisses him with such sweetness it makes his heart ache a little.

“Are you supposed to be here?” he asks, hating to look a gift horse in the mouth, but worried that this visit violates Phil’s instructions to him somehow.

“Definitely,” she whispers. “It’s all right Clint. I cleared it. Maybe you do need to prove to yourself that you can’t serve two masters, but I’m not one of them, and what’s between us isn’t touched by….that…in the way what’s between you and Phil is. Be with me, Barton. Nothing that happened gets in the way of this.” She reaches down between them and closes her fist around his cock. He groans softly.  “I mean...if you can…and if you want to…”

“Jesus fuck, woman,” he says fervently, and when his cock jerks a little in her hand she huffs out a soft laugh.

“Okay, looks like that’s a yes on both counts. Clint…any way you want, okay? However you need it to be. For you. I just need you.”

It starts out gentle. He kisses her softly, lips and eyelids and throat, and she hums softly when his fingers trickle over her breasts and thighs. She’s hot and wet between her legs, her clit already swollen with desire, and she gasps when he strokes it lazily with his thumb while his fingers press inside her. Her legs part easily when he rolls between them and slides into her with a sigh. He sinks deep and then presses his forehead to hers, panting a little as the tight heat of her and the way her fingernails bite a little when she clenches his arms and moans. He pulls back out slowly, looking down into her eyes, and the flare of heat he sees in them, and the need for her, and the way she yields to him that she so rarely does quite so completely as this, burn his desire for tenderness to ash in a sudden rush of hunger he couldn’t control if he had to. He rams back into her as hard as he can, and she cries out at the shock of it. He growls softly between clenched teeth.

“Mine.”

And then he just _takes_ her, slamming into her deep and hard, the powerful muscles of his back and shoulders driving his hammering thrusts. She bends her knees and plants her feet against the mattress so she can raise her hips to meet every one, and she rakes her nails down his back, urging him on.

“Oh god. Do it. Clint. Fuck me. Harder. Jesus. Fuck.”

He’s beyond speech, and he fucks into her eager body mindlessly, brutally, so hard that he knows they will both be sore tomorrow and so glad that she not only doesn’t care, but gets off on this as much as he does, that she meets his need and returns it, and that what’s between them isn’t just all right, it’s perfect. The tiny ripple of her inner muscles that warn of her impending orgasm pulls a groan from deep in his chest, and when her pussy clamps down on his cock like a cream-covered silken fist, he shouts wordlessly and empties himself into her body, shuddering and gasping and loving the way his name sounds when she screams it helplessly as she comes.

They talk for a while over breakfast, and he tells her about what he’s been trying to do, and doesn’t try to hide his doubts about it from her.

“I’m…well I won’t say I’m anywhere near all right about what happened in Africa, but I’m sort of starting to come to terms with it…or maybe I just mean I’m sort of starting to realize that I CAN come to terms with it.”

“That’s good,” she says calmly, buttering a piece of toast.

“Sometimes I wish…I don’t know…maybe that I understood Loki a little better? Because I’m damned if I know whether I’m doing myself any good at all here. Is he really still in my head somewhere? Does his power work that way? His…magic or whatever the fuck it is? Is this all in my head because I’m still imagining him, or because he’s left behind some kind of echo, or because he’s actually still taking up real estate in there somewhere?”

“I don’t know,” she says thoughtfully. The thoughtful expression is still there when she has to leave a little later. Part of him wishes she would stay, but she can’t. The rest of him knows that if she could, and did, her presence would probably make him forget what he’s really here for and it would be all too easy to lose himself in her, and so he does not ask her to.

Somehow that thoughtful look renders him completely unsurprised when a loud thunderclap shakes the cabin the next day even though there’s not a cloud in the sky. He’s globbing marshmallow fluff on a piece of bread when the door opens. He drops the peanut-buttered slice on top of it and holds it out.

“Hey Thor,” he grins, and laughs when the sandwich vanishes in four bites.

“Greetings, my friend,” says Thor a little indistinctly around a mouthful of his very sticky sandwich. He washes it down with the can of coke Clint hands him.

“Natasha sent you?” he asks rhetorically.

“Aye,” says Thor easily, following Clint out onto the deck where they sit down in two of the deck chairs and look out at the trees. “She said that perhaps I might be able to answer some questions for you about Loki.”

“You know, I’m not sure why I never thought to ask you about this before,” he admits, because it suddenly seems so obvious to him that he’s had the closest thing to an expert on Loki Laufeysson in the entire galaxy as one of his best friends for a while now and he kind of feels like a moron for not doing this sooner. Thor shrugs.

“Perhaps you wished to save my feelings, or perhaps you were not yet ready to be open about your own. Does it matter? You are ready to ask now, yes?”

“Yeah,” says Clint. “Not cause I really want to talk about it, but I guess I have to, because I’m not as over the whole thing as I’ve been acting like I was.”

“To have one’s free will stolen is far worse a form of violation than any physical thing a person can suffer, my friend,” says Thor simply, and that this is obvious to him makes it a little easier for Clint to broach the subject.

“What do you know about how Loki’s magic works?” he asks. Thor frowns a little.

“Not as much as I would like,” he admits slowly. “For if I had known more, perhaps I could have stopped him sooner. I am no expert, far from it, for when we were growing up, I thought his magic weak and silly. The refuge of those not strong enough to become real warriors. I was foolish of course. Loki’s power is not to be dismissed lightly. But ask what you wish to know, and perhaps I can tell you something that might help a little. And if I cannot, I will see if I can find someone on Asgard who can.”

“That’s…thank you,” says Clint. “I…what I want to know is this. Is it possible that he’s still here? In my head I mean? Can he do that? Leave behind a little bit of himself, a connection? Is he still able to read my thought or spy on me or talk to me or stuff like that?”

Thor looks at him in surprise.

“Do you really think him some kind of god?” he says.

“He said he was,” mutters Clint.

“Clint, he’s just a frost giant. A powerful one, I grant you, but not a god. His power cannot span galaxies. Once his control of you was broken, any connection he had to you was lost. His ability to control you came from the staff. It was never one of his own powers. He’s an illusionist, not a telepath. There are beings that could do what you’re asking about, I believe. The professor…Xavier is his name? I understand that his abilities are such that he could probably do this thing, but once Loki lost the staff, he lost the ability to take away another’s free will.”

“Are you sure?” asks Clint, a little breathlessly.

“I am sure,” says Thor firmly. “What terrible deeds he had done and how were dissected in great detail during his trial on Asgard. Were he still able to control another, I do not believe he would not have used this power by now to coerce a guard to release him from his cell. And yet there he still sits.”

Oh, how Clint wants to believe him. No, if he’s being honest with himself, he knows Thor wouldn’t lie to him, not even to save him mental anguish. What he really wants is to be able to make his fucked-up brain LET him believe it.

“Your people have a saying. Seeing is believing? That is how it goes, yes?”

“Yes,” says Clint. Thor stands up and looks at the sky.

“Heimdall,” he says softly, “I know that it is forbidden to ask you to open the bifrost save for greatest need. I know it is only barely restored and that not all its paths are stable. Heimdall, this man is my brother…my friend. He has fought by my side and proved his worth many times. Of all the people of Midgard, this man has been hurt more by Loki’s actions than by any other, and he is haunted by that pain. I humbly ask passage, Heimdall, as his need is great. Please.” As he speaks, Thor gestures urgently at Clint to stand up and come to him. Staring at the bigger man warily as he speaks softly to the sky, Clint does as he asks, staring dubiously upwards as nothing seems to happen.

Suddenly a blinding light spears down from the sky and surrounds them. Clint cries out as his eyes are dazzled and throws his arm across his face in an attempt to protect his eyes. He dimly hears Thor shouting at him not to be afraid, but he’s abruptly too busy being turned inside-out and flying apart in all directions and merging into the dancing rainbows of light to become one with them to be afraid. It is horrible and sickening and exhilarating all at the same time. He stumbles when it ceases as abruptly as it had begun, and nearly falls to his knees on a shiny golden floor that seems to be inscribed with thousands upon thousands of mysterious symbols. He looks around wildly and sees that they are inside a round, domed room made entirely of what seems to be gold, in the center of which there stands a raised dais with a huge sword thrust into it and a large, dark-skinned man with golden armor and eyes the same metallic gleam that stands staring at them impassively.

“Heimdall,” says Thor, bowing respectfully to the man. “You have my thanks.” The gold-clad man nods solemnly at Thor and then looks at Clint.

“Agent Clint Barton,” he says in a rumbling, deep voice, “Hawkeye. Welcome to Asgard.” Clint stares at him, open-mouthed, for a moment before he shakes himself mentally and viciously mutters at himself to stop being a moron. Natasha would be slapping him in the back of the head right about now.

“Th…thank you,” he gasps, and isn’t entirely sure but thinks the man named Heimdall smiles a little. Well, his lips sort of twitch.

Asgard is like nothing he could possibly have imagined. Its floating palaces and soaring spires are awe-inspiring, and the rainbow bridge Thor leads him across is like walking on living light and color, and Clint wishes he was better able to appreciate it because he’s wanted to visit here for a while now, but he’s not slow on the uptake and he knows why Thor has done this for him, and where they’re going, and his stomach is tied up in too many knots to really appreciate the incredible views.

A woman intercepts them as they enter the enormous palace that is the seat of power over all of Asgard’s splendor. She is tall and graceful and agelessly beautiful. She’s also pissed, which Clint can tell before she opens her mouth because her snapping eyes remind him a lot of Natasha’s and he recognizes the fire in them.

“Whatever else he is,” she hisses at Thor, somehow managing to look him right in the eye despite his being more than a foot taller than she, “he is still my son. Not some…beast in a cage to be stared at and poked by a mortal because you take a notion to allow it, Thor.”

“Lady Mother,” says Thor respectfully, “this is Hawkeye, my brother in arms and my friend. Hawkeye, my mother, Frigga, Queen of Asgard.”

Clint’s not really sure what to say, so he just bows to her and hopes he doesn’t look as much like an idiot as he feels. She nods and greets him, gracious to the bone despite how pissed she is.

“Uh…Thor? It’s okay, you know. I don’t…I don’t want to see him anyway,” mutters Clint uncomfortably, wincing inwardly when this makes Frigga look at him sharply.

“Mother,” says Thor gently, and Clint can tell by the expression on his face that he loves this woman with every fiber of his being and that despite the fact that he dwarfs her in comparison, Thor’s NOT used to defying her. “Please believe that I have not brought my friend here to make fun of anyone. He…Loki…used the Chitauri staff and the tesseract’s power to steal Hawkeye’s free will. Loki then used his body to kill people. Mother, they were people this man worked with, some of them he called friend. Others were simply innocents. This is a man of honor, my Queen, and he carries a burden of guilt he does not deserve, and fears he may not be entirely free of the Trickster’s control.”

Frigga looks at Clint again and her eyes soften and fill with tears. She steps to him and lays her hand gently on the side of his face. In her expression he can see sympathy and grief. She glances up at Thor.

“I’ll take him,” she says softly. “Your father needs to speak with you. It is urgent.” She turns back to Clint, who kind of gets a kick out of the way she dismisses Thor, assuming she’s going to be obeyed without a second thought. She is, too, as Thor turns on his heel and strides off, presumably in search of his dad. It’s funny to think about Thor with a mom and a dad. Frigga tucks her hand neatly into his arm so that it looks like he’s escorting her, and rather than striking him as invasive, he thinks it’s kind of charming. Without seeming to, she leads him through a dizzying array of corridors and halls and stairways leading ever downwards.

“I’m so sorry,” she says softly, “for the pain you suffered because of my son.” He looks at her out of the corners of his eyes with no idea what to say to her. There’s obviously no question in her mind that Loki is her son, even though he himself has publicly and loudly denied his relationship to the ruling family of Asgard and flaunted his Jotun heritage instead. There aren’t many people Clint truly hates, but this woman’s son is one of them, and it makes him feel really uncomfortable to hear in her voice that she loves the guy in spite of everything he’s done.

“It’s…not your fault…your majesty,” he says awkwardly.

“Tis kind of you to say so,” she murmurs, “though I have oft blamed myself. Wondered what I could have done differently so that he would never have doubted my love for him, never have rejected us as his family. My son is so very lost, Hawkeye. I am his mother. I cannot but hope that one day he will see the error of his ways and come  back to me. It is…what mothers do. Or should. But I’ll make no excuse for what he did to you. There is none, and he will pay for all of it. Perhaps forever.  Is there anything I can do to offer you justice? Among our people long ago, and among the Midgardian who worshipped  us, there was the wergild, a price paid to those wrongfully injured by another, or a ransom paid. We owe you a debt.”

“Oh. Um. I don’t…want anything like that. Really. I just need…closure, I guess? I need to know for sure that he can’t control me anymore. Do…uh…do you know if he can?”

Frigga squeezes his arm gently.

“Under close proximity, Loki is able to project his thoughts and possibly read another’s, but he can’t control or possess another being without an object of power or an extremely complicated ritual. The staff has been destroyed.”

“You’re sure?”

“It matters only that you be sure, young warrior. Here we are. Go and see if you can find what you seek from Loki. He will make it difficult, you know.”

“Yeah, I kind of expect that,” sighs Clint unhappily.

“Come and find me when you are finished here. There’s something I’d like to give you, and perhaps it will help a little.”

They’ve stopped at a huge, heavy barred door. Frigga knocks and instructs the guard who responds to take Hawkeye to see the prisoner Loki, then she turns and leaves him there with a reassuring squeeze of his arm. He follows the guard in his shiny Asgardian armor…and what IS with the horns anyway?...looking into what looks like glass covering the cells out of the corners of his eyes. Some of the prisoners are…truly terrifying.

Apparently, having been raised as royalty affords certain privileges, because Loki’s cell is larger than the others, and he doesn’t have to share it with anybody. It contains a few luxuries as well, some items of furniture and a bookshelf. The Trickster himself is sitting stretched out on a lounge-like thing, one bare foot stretched out along its length while the other is tucked under him, reading a book. He wears a long green robe that looks comfortable but not luxurious. He doesn’t look up when the guard growls that he has a visitor, but idly finishes a few more pages. Clint’s pretty sure he knows perfectly well who is standing outside the cell and that he’s trying to wait him out…and freak him out. But Hawkeye has learned patience from Phil Coulson, so he just stands there and watches Loki read, silent and motionless. One dark, elegant brow lifts finally, and the book is set down on a small table beside the lounge. Loki stands up and wanders slowly over to the…glass? Plexiglas? Solidified air? That is the wall of his cage and lets his insolent green eyes travel slowly up Clint’s body.

“So has the dog come to gloat over its master’s downfall?” he purrs softly when he finally looks into Clint’s eyes. The insult is so transparent that Clint laughs, because when Loki speaks, he feels nothing. No tiny leap of joy at the sound of his voice, no compulsion to agree with him.

“My master’s in New York,” he says easily, smirking a little when Loki looks surprised at his use of the term.

“So I trained you well,” he sneers back, “so well that when you slipped your leash you had to find another to place one on your neck. How marvelous.”

“It is pretty fucking marvelous, actually,” agrees Clint, touching the silver collar around his neck. Loki’s eyes track the movement and Clint thinks he sees a flare of jealousy in the green eyes. “See, I’ve been his for a really long time. Years, in fact, it just took me a while to realize it. Years before you came. Phil has nothing to do with you. Sorry to disappoint. You’re actually a really shitty master, if you wanna know the truth. What kind of dominant has to use  magic to keep a sub in line anyway? Psh.” Every word that Clint throws at the caged Jotun makes him feel better and better. When he says Phil’s name, Loki’s head jerks back in surprise.

“Phil Coulson is dead,” he hisses angrily. “I killed him with my own hands, rammed the staff I used to rape your mind through his heart and left him bleeding out on the floor.”

“He’s pretty active for a dead guy,” grins Clint nastily, stepping closer to the glass so he can look into Loki’s petulant face more easily, “and he fucks like a goddamn boss.”

The sudden flare of elegant nostrils and the way his pupils dilate tells Clint he’s right on target that Loki had planned to go there with him, had planned to own and use his body as a plaything, but hadn’t had the time, and that he regrets it, and doesn’t like what Clint’s saying to him at all. But the Trickster didn’t get his nickname by being so easily baited, and he takes a breath and gets control of his expression, returning to one of bored amusement.

“And here I thought you in love with the lovely Miss Romanov,” he says bitingly. “How fickle you Midgardians’ emotions are. How shallow.”

“Oh, I belong to her too,” grins Clint. “And she to me. We’re all very happy, and it’s actually all thanks to you. That’s why I’m here, you know. To thank you. I might have never realized what I had if you hadn’t come along and shaken things up.”

Oh, Loki doesn’t like that at all. Not one bit. His slender fingers clench into fists and the muscles around his eyes tighten.

“You surprise me, Agent Barton. I assumed after how easily I turned you against your friends that your tiny brain would desire vengeance, would want to find a way to kill me.”

“Oh, I’d love to kill you,” agrees Clint, because there’s no sense lying about that.

“You’d have to get in line,” laughs Loki bitterly.

“No,” says Clint softly. “There’s not one person in the universe who’d like to kill you more than I would, or who has more of a right to do it. I came here to get you out of my head, but now that I see you, I realize how pointless the trip was.”

“I’d say I’m still very much in your head if the need for vengeance drives you so. As long as you feel it, I’ll always own you,” smirks Loki. Clint’s grin turns fierce.

“Guy as smart as you’re supposed to be and you can’t even understand a few simple words? I said I’d like to kill you. I don’t need to. You hate being stuck in here a lot more than you’d hate being dead. The endless boredom. The same view, day after day. Forever. Or…close to it, anyway. I understand you guys live for a really long time.”

“Not like you absurd mortals with your short, meaningless little lives,” snarls the Trickster. This makes Clint laugh out loud.

“Yeah?” he says finally, letting a great weight slide from him, because this petulant, angry, sullen being is no threat to him anymore. “Well, you just make yourself feel better at how much shorter my life’s gonna be than yours, cause I’m gonna be living it out there under the great big sky, saving the world from bags of dicks like you, and loving the two people who mean the world to me each and every one of them and you can enjoy your much longer life right here.”

And he turns and walks away. He thinks he hears something smash against the wall of Loki’s cell, but he doesn’t care and he doesn’t look back. He retraces the route Frigga had used to bring him to the dungeons, because it’s never mattered how convoluted a path is to Clint. Once he’s seen it, he remembers every detail. Once he’s back in the palace proper, he asks a guard how to find the Queen and is shown to her rooms. They are, unsurprisingly, elegant and lovely. She is sitting in a chair by a big window, looking down over a courtyard where apparently an army is gathering, because he can hear orders being shouted and the sound of many feet marching and the chime of hundreds of bits and pieces of armor and sword belts. She turns from the sight and smiles at Clint, indicating he should come and sit beside her.

“I do not need to ask,” she says warmly. “I can see that you got what you came here for.”

“I did,” he says. “He really can’t control me anymore. He didn’t try, but I didn’t need him to. I could tell as soon as I saw him.”

“I’m glad,” she says, still smiling, although her eyes remain sad. Clint wishes somehow he could make her feel better, but her sadness doesn’t have anything to do with him, except that she’s sorry for what Loki did to him. He decides he’ll face torture rather than ever tell this woman that he’d put an arrow in her son’s heart and not lose a moment’s sleep over it. She’s not stupid, and it would be needlessly cruel to say it. She’s been nothing but kind to him, and something about her makes him want to pick her flowers or lay his head on her knee or hug her and then run off and slay a dragon or two for her.  “I have a gift for you,” she continues, taking his hand, “and then I’m sorry to say we must escort you to Heimdall and return you to your own world. War is coming to the realms, war caused by Loki’s scheming for the most part, and there is little time.”

War? Well, that explains the army in the courtyard. But shit.

“Can I help?” he asks, and is surprised to find that he means it, no matter how badly he wants to get home and see Phil. “If we can get a message to the others, they’d be glad to come and help too. I mean, Thor’s pretty much saved all our lives at least…well hell, more times than I can remember. If you need us…”

Frigga smiles, and places something in his hand, closing his fingers over it and patting them gently.

“No, my dear. These are the sorts of conflicts our armies are well-equipped to handle and at which Thor excels. We would not rob Midgard of all its guardians to help up clean up a few messes we can handle on our own. Take this back with you though.”

He turns his hand over and opens it. In the palm of his hand there is a simple stone medallion with some sort of rune carved in it. It hangs from a simple leather thong. It seems an oddly plain sort of a gift for a monarch to give, but he shrugs mentally and slips it over his head. The room seems to tilt sideways for a second and he grabs the arms of the chair he’s in to keep from falling out onto the floor. He closes his eyes against the sudden vertigo, but when he opens them, everything is back to normal.

“What the hell was that?” he gasps, staring open-mouthed at Frigga, who is smiling at him in amusement.

“It was the magics of the amulet attuning themselves to you. Some people do find it a bit disconcerting.”

“Is there some kind of a school you Asgardian nobles go to that teaches you how to be enigmatic?” he mutters, shaking his head a little to make sure the room is going to stay where it is. She laughs.

“Of course. It is taught to us hand in hand with veiled insults and politeness to enemies we’d rather eviscerate.”

Now it’s Clint’s turn to laugh.

“Oh wow. Your majesty, there’s somebody I really hope you get to meet someday.” Natasha would dig this woman right down to the ground. “Um…this necklace that’s a bit disconcerting…what does it do?”

“It protects your mind from others,” says Frigga simply, reaching out to squeeze his hand gently. Clint’s eyebrows shoot up and he looks down at the thing hanging in the middle of his chest in shock. “No one will ever be able to make you do something against your will by using your own mind against you, so long as you’re wearing it.”

“Wow. Um…thanks. But…it’s too much, your Majesty!” He tries to take it off, give it back to her. She smiles again and stops his hands by seizing them both. She’s surprisingly strong.

“It is attuned to you now, Hawkeye. I won’t work for anyone else. It is my gift to you. Please, I must do something , to apologize for my son’s actions. I’ll sleep better knowing you’re wearing it, and that some small part of the debt has been repaid.”

“I…thank you,” he says, shaking his head a little, because it’s not her fault. None of it. But from the small amount of time he’s spent with her, he knows he’s not going to win an argument with her, so he gives in and tucks the amulet under his shirt. There’s a knock at the door and then Thor is there, and Frigga hugs him, and they’re hurrying back through the palace and the amazing soaring buildings to the rainbow bridge. Thor talks as they go.

“I need you to give a message to the others for me. I cannot return with you at this time, my friend. My people need me. There are disturbances among many of the realms, enemy elements who have sought to take advantage of our preoccupation with Loki’s treacheries to seize power. I am in command of Asgard’s armies and I must stay here and lead them. Tell everyone not to worry. I’ll return as soon as I can. Tell Jane…tell her I’m sorry. It is most cruel that I must simply vanish this way, but there is no one else who can take my place, Clint.”

“Dude, don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault. I’ll explain. I saw the army and shit. We’ll be there when you get back. Just…take care, yeah? I’m pretty sure Jane’s gonna be seriously pissed if anything happens to you.”

“Aye. For one of such small stature, she can be surprisingly loud when her ire is raised.”

“Plus Darcy will tase you again.”

Thor’s lips twitch and he grins.

“Do not tell her that her fearsome weapon would have no effect upon me whatsoever since my powers were returned to me. I would hate to disappoint her.”

“Well yeah, I kinda figured. Don’t worry. Secret’s safe.”

They’ve reached the bifrost now and Thor asks Heimdall to return Hawkeye to Midgard. He grabs the archer in a spine-crushing hug and then takes Mjolnir in hand and flies off too fast for Clint to see him go. Clint gasps his thanks to the golden-eyed guardian, hoping vaguely that Thor hasn’t fractured his ribs, and then Heimdall twists his sword in the pedestal and the blinding light is back. In moments Clint finds himself standing on the deck of the Hawk’s Nest cabin, still breathless from the hug, Frigga’s amulet warm against his skin.

He packs in record time, and for a guy who’s ready to ship out on a  mission at a moment’s notice all the time, that’s really saying something. He calls for a quinjet as he drives down the mountain, and by the time he’s returning the rental in Pigeon Forge, it has arrived. It’s Tasha at the controls, which surprises him not at all. She squints at him closely as he tosses his duffel into the back of the bird, and when he smiles, she grins back. They’ve never needed a lot of words. She can see on his face that he’s okay. More than okay. He tells her about what Thor did for him as they head for home, about meeting Frigga and seeing Loki. He tries to describe Asgard, but words fail him. He frowns suddenly in his narrative and curses.

“What?” she asks, alarmed.

“Damn it! I forgot to ask Thor to bring me back one of those whips he said they have artisans for where he’s from!”

“Freak.”

“This is news?”

“No, I just like to remind you.”

“In case I randomly forget I’m a freak?”

“No, in case you ever think about stopping, in which case I’d be forced to kill you. Slowly.”

“Ah. Well, I’ll keep that in mind. Pretty sure I’m safe though. You’re stuck with my sickness, babe.”

“Call me babe again and I’ll remind you you’re not the only freak in this helijet, Asshat,” she says, smiling dangerously. Christ, he loves her.

Phil’s using his quarters at SHIELD, because without Clint there he feels a little odd staying at Avengers mansion even though nobody would mind. She drops him there and flies off with his luggage. He hopes he doesn’t have to track it down later. She won’t forget she has it, but Tasha’s not very big on taking care of shit for him and she may think it’s funnier for him to have to find his bag than it is helpful of her to dump it in his place for him. Not that he spares more than a second’s thought for it, because Phil. He doesn’t wait for the elevator when he sees that it’s on the ground floor. He takes the stairs, because he can slide and climb down the rails faster than the sleek, swift elevator can climb, although if Phil saw him doing it, he’d probably have words, because one misstep could send Clint headfirst down the open stairwell. He doesn’t, of course, miss a step.

He’s on his knees in the hallway after he knocks on Phil’s apartment door. Some staff  members see him and stare as they pass him. He doesn’t care. The door opens, and since he’s not looking up, all he sees are the cuffs of Phil’s slacks and his socks. The sight of them makes him want to laugh and cry at the same time. Phil doesn’t wear shoes when he’s at home, because he has several antique rugs he’s acquired from Turkey and China and Iran and he doesn’t want the priceless fibers crushed. He has them in the San Francisco apartment too. His master’s fingers touch his chin and he looks up into beloved blue eyes.

“Clint…” breathes Phil, and Clint looks him steadily in the eyes.

“He’s gone, Sir,” he says softly. Phil’s eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, and then he’s tugging Clint to his feet and into his apartment and then into his arms. He has to tell the story again, and in a lot more detail because Phil is used to debriefing agents with much worse memories than Hawkeye has, but he gets to do it with his head on Phil’s arm and his legs over Phil’s knees while his lover’s hand traces aimless designs on the fabric of his jeans. He’d like for there to be a lot more touching happening, but he knows Phil’s going to insist they approach that with caution.

“I’m so proud of you,” says Phil at last.

“Thank you, Sir. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it. And honestly, on my own, I’ve got doubts about whether I would have. I’m glad Tasha said something to Thor. It was exactly what I needed. We’re lucky to have him as a friend.”

“We are indeed,” agrees Phil. “Clint…I’d very much like to kiss you now. Do you think you’d be able to let me?”

“Do I think I’d…?” Clint stares at Phil in astonishment until he remembers how he’d flinched the last time Phil had touched him, in the hospital, and the specter of the shapeshifter who had worn Phil’s face. Oh. He smiles at Phil. “Yeah. Let’s try,” he says softly.

Phil’s surprised at the enthusiasm of Clint’s response, as is evident when he stiffens and almost pulls away when Clint opens his mouth and ignores Phil’s attempt at a chaste, careful kiss, pressing his tongue into his mouth and whining hungrily, shifting so he’s straddling his lover’s lap and gripping the lapels of his jacket to pull them closer together. Coulson has to yank Clint’s head back by his hair and slap him sharply on the hip to make him pay attention. Clint’s pupils are blown and his dick is so hard it wants to split the seam of his zipper.

“Clint,” snaps Phil sharply, and Clint tries to focus, he really does. Phil’s smiling a little but he looks exasperated too. “Do you honestly think forcing me to have to spank you is the best way to start working through the issues we need to deal with surrounding your torture and rape before we even start to think about becoming intimate again?”

“Hngh. Suh…ah…sounds like a good plan to me, Sir,” gasps Clint. Phil laughs, then grows more serious.

“Clint, you had serious difficulties with me even touching you a few weeks ago.”

“I know,” says Clint uncomfortably, squirming a little. “And…yeah…I know it’s maybe not going to be exactly back to normal for me, and that there are probably gonna be some things to work out. But…Sir…you know how I bounce back from the bad stuff, or how I always did before, most of the time, right?”

“Most of the time nobody who hurt you was wearing the face of someone you trusted,” says Phil mildly.

“Yeah but here’s the thing. The reason I believed it was you, was cause in my gut I was afraid it was true, you know? That Loki’d taken me over again and made me do something horrible that I couldn’t remember. I didn’t believe it was you because I really thought you’d do those things to me. Not really. It was me I didn’t trust or believe in, not you. Now that I know there’s no way he could have done that, or ever will again, when I think about….what happened….the shifter isn’t even wearing your face anymore. See? Because I know I couldn’t have betrayed you…I know you’d never do anything like that to me.”

“Your brain works on some of the most convoluted logic I’ve ever heard of,” says Phil, shaking his head a little.

“Okay, so yeah it’s probably a good idea if I talk to the fucking company shrink about the whole being violated thing, and I will. As much as I can stand to, anyway.” Clint tilts his head and thinks for a minute, but it’s hard because he’s still straddling Phil’s hips and he’s not the only one with an erection now. “And…ugh…it’s been more than a month so I’m cleared for…you know…penetration…but I’m not stupid, and maybe it’s going to hurt some and we’ll have to be careful. And maybe I’m gonna have some issues with being fired up about you tying me up and beating me before you fuck me from behind for a little while, you know?”

“I can’t imagine,” says Phil mildly.

“Gah. I hate trying to explain this kind of shit,” complains Clint. “Okay look. You…you made me go away until I could look you in the eye and say it’s only you and me in this room together, right?”

“I recall,” says Phil.

“And I know you meant Loki, because he was the reason I believed it could be you doing that stuff to me. But Sir…maybe you need to say the same thing, okay? Because  maybe you’re seeing that shifter in between us when he’s not really there anymore, because you need to believe me when I say that it’s only you and me in this room together. And I want you so bad.”

“Well I will be damned,” murmurs Phil softly, and then he’s kissing Clint again and that’s perfect, that’s exactly what Clint wants.

When Phil takes his hand and takes him to bed, Clint is trembling, but it is from desire, not fear. When Phil undresses him, he looks steadily into his lover’s eyes and bites his lip against the urge to demand that Phil hurry the fuck up. When Phil carefully slips a slick finger inside him, Clint stiffens a little and sucks in his breath because it’s been a long time and he’s had surgery so he’s even tighter than mere lack of practice would account for, and one very small part of his brain wants to panic at the burn of the stretch.

“Do you need to stop?” asks Phil softly.

“No!” pants Clint desperately, because nerves or no, his cock is still really happy to be here and oh god if Phil stops now he’s going to fucking cry. Phil nods once and makes Clint look him in the eyes while he carefully stretches him. This is easier said than done by the time Clint chases away the specter of his abuser, because then he doesn’t want to wait anymore but Phil’s going to take his damn time no matter how Clint swears he’s all right and to please hurry. Phil uses most of an entire bottle of lube and when he finally adds a second finger and curls them gently upwards, Clint almost comes off the bed, back arching and eyes rolling back in his head. Phil chuckles softly and Clint curses fervently and presses down against Phil’s hand. Phil has two hands of course, and the other one slaps him sharply on the inside of his thigh. Clint yelps and opens his eyes to look at Phil again. Phil’s expression up until now has been one of concern and tenderness and worry. Now he’s grinning. He’s a very mean man.

“Jesus,” whines the archer. “I swear to God, Master, I am gonna come if you keep this shit up and I really…I really want you to be fucking me when that happens.”

“Mm,” says Phil noncommittally, curling his fingertips again.

“Oh fuck. Please!”

Phil adds a third finger and Hawkeye whimpers and digs his fingers into the bedspread.

“What was that?” asks Phil.

“Jesus fuck. Oh please Master…I can’t…hng…just _please,_ Sir!”

“Please what, Clint?”

“Please….hn…please be with me. Be in me. Just…please _now_! I need you so bad. Need to feel you. Phil. Master. I’m ready, I swear it. Just…ohhh…”

Clint’s breath escapes his body on a long sigh when Phil’s fingers are suddenly replaced by the head of his cock and he nudges gently and carefully past Clint’s opening.

“All right?” asks Phil softly.

“Ohgod. Y…yes. Just…go slow. Stings a l…ah…little.”

Tears spring up in Clint’s eyes as Phil slowly and painstakingly fills him. There is some pain, because Phil isn’t small, and though there’s a tiny part of his brain that worries about whether he’s lost the ability to crave that pain because right now it scares his a tiny bit, mostly he’s too aroused to worry too much about it. Phil takes him at his word and goes very slow indeed so that the small pain feels like an ancient memory by the time their bodies are joined and Clint is shaking with need and making nearly incoherent pleas. Phil rocks against him slowly, and his hand comes up to wrap around Clint’s weeping cock. Clint groans in desperation when Phil slowly jerks him off, his hips rolling hungrily, and for a minute he doesn’t even realize how easily Phil is moving inside him because the hand on his dick feels so damn good but then they are moving together and it is slow and sweet and good and Clint whispers Phil’s name when he comes, shuddering and gasping. Phil’s breath catches and he moves a little faster, a little deeper, and it’s fine, it’s great, and Clint looks intently at his face and loves the way Phil looks when his pleasure takes him and the archer knows that he had spoken the truth because there is nobody…absolutely nobody…in this apartment and this room and this bed with them except themselves and the love they share.

Except, you know, later when they call Tasha and she brings pizza.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lest anyone be concerned that I'm glossing over how Clint is affected by being raped, please bear in mind just how well the man manages to bounce back from some pretty horrible shit. However, I will never ever suggest that rape is not one of the most horrible crimes that can be committed against a human being, male or female. Yes, there will be issues, I just needed Clint, Phil, and the readers to know those issues aren't so much going to be between Clint and Phil, but that they'll still work through them together


	21. Part 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Phil get back together a few weeks after the events of the previous chapter. Clint is in therapy, with a doctor he actually likes, to help him deal with some of the fallout from his assault and rape. Phil hasn't played with him since then, and he's starting to get more than a little frustrated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know...it's been a really, really long time. A lot has happened, and I had honestly believed for a long time that I wasn't going to be able to write again, mostly due to the medications I'm taking causing me to be unable to connect with my stories at all. It was a lot like losing an arm! But I cautiously decided to give it a try, and have been making really encouraging progress in my other fandoms, including expanding into a new one with a Sephiroth x Cloud series from Final Fantasy VII & Kingdom Hearts that turned into a monster and wouldn't leave me alone. I've been struggling with where to go with this series, but I think I've finally decided. This chapter doesn't contain any actual kink, but as usual, it's taking longer than I'd planned to get to the point! So, this chapter is essentially buildup towards the next one, which I will try to post as soon as possible!

He relaxes back against his pillows, staring sleepily up at the ceiling.  He enjoys them now, these moments before sleep...a sleep which comes more easily than it has in a long time. Since Tasha, and then Phil, so long as there’d been someone with him, it hadn’t been so bad, especially if said someone had found some creative and enjoyable way to exhaust him before the lights went out. But the nights like this one, when he’d been alone...he’d dreaded them, put off going to bed long past the point of sleep deprivation more often than not. Because even when he’d been alone, he hadn’t felt alone. And not in a good way. Oh, he’d always tried to hold Phil or Tasha’s faces firmly in mind, but it had never lasted. Inevitably, they’d been replaced. Replaced by mocking green eyes and a silky voice reminding him that he’d never truly be free. Not really. 

 

Turns out the voice had been wrong, and isn’t that a hell of a thing. He closes his eyes with a smile, enjoying the silence in his head for a minute. Then his thoughts drift to Phil, who will arrive tomorrow, and he falls asleep with the only voice in his head the one of the man he loves, growling all sorts of delicious threats in his ear. 

 

Of course, he wakes up with his dick so hard it  _ hurts _ , and Phil so foremost in his mind it almost seems like he can smell the older man’s cologne. He groans and rolls over onto his stomach. Damned if he’s going to jerk off  _ now _ , not when Phil will be here soon and he can...He frowns. He’s pretty damn sure he’s actually awake now, because erections never ache this much in dreams, but he can still smell Phil’s cologne. Aventus, by Creed. It costs over $200 an ounce and Clint thinks it’s worth every fucking penny. He’d recognize it anywhere; just a little bit of apple and other fruit on top, but mostly woody and spicy and just  _ Phil. _ He rolls back over and sits up, listening intently. His eyes may be his strongest sense, but  _ all _ of Hawkeye’s senses have been trained and honed to human perfection. Okay, maybe a little better than that, but...yeah. A wide grin splits his face as he hears the quiet sound of a page turning. He jumps out of bed and yanks on a pair of sleep pants over his straining boxer briefs, feeling like it might be a little obvious to greet Phil with his current condition displayed  _ quite _ so prominently. 

 

Sure enough, Phil is sitting in one of Clint’s two big leather armchairs reading a newspaper, smelling awesome and looking even better. They haven’t seen each other in a couple of weeks, and hadn’t had nearly enough time to spend together following Clint’s return from Asgard for the archer’s taste. His master looks up and smiles, folding the paper and setting it aside. Clint takes one step, then another, and then he’s straddling Phil’s lap and kissing him enthusiastically, Phil’s chuckle seeming to vibrate in his bones.

 

“How long have you been here?” he asks, more than a little breathlessly when the kiss finally breaks.

 

“Mm, an hour perhaps,” says Phil, his hands on the younger man’s hips, his thumbs stroking lazily over Clint’s hip bones and he should definitely,  _ definitely _ keep doing that.

 

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

 

“I like seeing you sleep peacefully. You haven’t done enough of it. I’d come to think of that faint shadow under your eyes as just a part of you, until I saw your face a couple of mornings after you got home from your visit to Asgard. Now I find it makes me happy to let you sleep sometimes.”

 

“I’m  _ still _ pissed I forgot to shop while I was there,” mutters Clint under his breath. Asgardians, if Thor is any indication, are kinky fuckers, and his demigod friend’s stories about the leatherwork to be had on his home planet have been making Clint drool with envy for months. Phil laughs.

 

“Another time, perhaps,” he smiles. 

 

“Yeah, maybe. Well, it makes  _ me _ happy to wake up to you already being here,” says Clint, dropping the subject easily because really, his Master is fucking inventive enough without the addition of alien bondage toys.

 

“I can tell,” jokes Phil drily, glancing down at the archer’s still very obvious morning wood. “Want some help with that?” One hand drifts from Clint’s hip to his crotch where it presses firmly against the turgid hardness tenting the front of his pants.

 

“Ngh. Only if you want to, Sir,” he says a little faintly, concentrating on not rutting into Phil’s hand. Phil’s fingers slide deftly inside his waistband and trace the length of his cock.

 

“I want to. Up,” says Phil, withdrawing his hand and tapping Clint on the hip. He climbs off Phil’s lap, taking the older man’s hand when it’s offered, then follows him to Clint’s bedroom. Phil pushes him down onto the bed gently, then tugs his hastily donned sleep pants down his hips and off his legs. The black boxer briefs with their distinctly damp patch near the waistband follow, allowing Clint’s cock to spring free. Phil sits down beside him, then lays on his side, propped on one elbow, wrapping his fingers around his boy’s straining erection. Clint gasps and arches into the touch.

 

“Sir,” he pants as Phil’s hand begins to move, “may I...make a request?”

 

“Of course,” replies Phil, smiling fondly at him.

 

“N-not this way? I want...fuck that feels good...I want  _ you _ . Fuck me. Please?”

 

“Are you sure you have the patience to wait long enough for me to prep you for that? This looks like it’s pretty...insistent,” chuckles Phil. His hand slows down though, for which Clint’s grateful because if Phil keeps it up, any requests he may make are going to become moot. 

 

“No prep,” gasps Hawkeye. Phil frowns.

 

“I’m not sure you’re ready for anything that rough yet, little boy,” he says reluctantly. Clint shakes his head a little in frustration. God, he’s so fucking horny now he’s not even sure he can explain what he’s asking for.

 

“Not rough,” he replies. “Slow.” Phil’s frown clears.

 

“I think I know what you mean,” he says, a slow, deliciously dirty smile spreading. Clint’s skin pebbles. Phil stands back up and quickly strips off his clothing, then rejoins him on the bed. He opens the drawer in the bedside table and takes out the bottle of lubricant kept there. “Turn on your side, away from me,” he orders in a low voice. Clint obeys with alacrity, and moments later cries out softly at the sensation of one of Phil’s fingers, slippery and cool, sliding between his cheeks to rub for a moment at the tight clench of his hole. He moans and presses his hips back when the finger slides slowly inside him. Phil removes it quite soon though, then applies more lube. Twice more he does this, ensuring that Clint’s asshole is very thoroughly slicked, then adds more of the silky liquid to his own erection.  Clint whimpers softly when he feels the blunt hardness of the head of Phil’s cock press against his hole. A strong hand closes over his hip and holds him steady. He shivers.

 

“Please,” he breathes.

 

“Relax, baby boy, I’ve got you.” Phil’s voice is a soft growl in his ear, and his body obeys instinctively, going pliant in his lover’s hands. Then, with painstaking slowness, Phil begins to nudge his cock into his body. He takes deep breaths as his hole slowly spreads to accept the invasion. Phil rocks his hips carefully, pressing into him in minute, gentle increments. The sting of accepting Phil’s cock without being stretched first is minimized by the agonizingly slow pace, but it’s exactly what he wants. He moans softly as he savors every inch, as his Master fills him slowly. The stretch nearly takes his breath away, but it doesn’t  _ hurt _ . Rather he’s just nearly overwhelmed by the gradual but inexorable sense of fullness, and is acutely aware of the part of him stretched wide to accept Phil’s claiming of him. 

 

“You feel so good,” purrs Phil into his ear once he’s finally lodged fully and firmly all the way inside, his hips against Clint’s ass, their bodies pressed tightly together. 

 

“Oh my god, I really do,” agrees Clint wholeheartedly, which makes Phil laugh. He doesn’t move for a minute, and even though Clint’s pretty desperate to come by now, he doesn’t protest. He closes his eyes and focuses on the feeling of Phil inside him, the small ache of the acutely tight ring of muscle just inside his asshole, the drugging pleasure of being filled all the way up, the press of Phil’s hardness against that one spot that make his toes curl. Humming softly, he clenches around the other man’s cock and they both gasp a little. Phil growls and bites him softly at the join of his neck and shoulder, then slowly rolls his hips, dragging his cock back inch by inch and sliding home again.

 

“Ohh,” sighs Clint.

 

“Any pain?” asks Phil, and Clint shakes his head emphatically. “Good,” says his lover, and starts to move a little faster. Clint whimpers in approval and rocks his hips back to meet Phil’s rolling, easy thrusts. In this position, the angle makes Phil’s cock drag  _ perfectly _ over and over his prostate every time. That added to the fact that he’s had an erection since sometime before he’d woken up has him panting and shuddering in minutes.

 

“Hng...fuck, gonna...gonna come soon, Sir,” he whispers. Phil hums in approval and slips his hand over Clint’s hip to circle the archer’s leaking erection and stroke its length firmly, root to tip. “Oh God, so good...can’t wait, Sir, please…” he begs hoarsely, arching into the touch, then pushing back against Phil, his breath hitching as his balls draw tight, pleasure tingling in his spine.

 

“When you’re ready,” whispers Phil a bit breathlessly as the clutching of Clint’s hole tightens down on him. Clint closes his eyes and cries out as pleasure swamps him, his cock pulsing in Phil’s hand as he comes hard, light sparking behind his eyelids. Phil fucks him steadily through his orgasm and then, as a warm, pleasant lassitude makes his limbs begin to feel heavy, feels the rush of warmth inside his body as Phil’s own climax fills him. They lie like that for several minutes, Clint basking in the sensation of Phil’s arms around him and his strong, steady presence against his back. Then Phil kisses him softly on the back of his neck and withdraws gently. Clint turns to face him and they smile. His deft fingers stroke the lines of Phil’s face and neck.

 

“Hi,” he whispers. Phil chuckles and plants a quick, bitey kiss on his grinning mouth.

 

“Hi back, little boy. Breakfast?”

 

“Awesome. I’m starving,” agrees Clint happily.

  
  
  
  


“What time is your appointment?”

 

Clint looks up at Phil’s casual question, his mouth full of bacon and eggs that for some reason seem to taste better just because Phil made them. He swallows, flushing a little.

 

“Ah...two. You’re still coming with me, right?” He’s been seeing a therapist as he’d promised, and even though he’s never going to be crazy about the idea, he likes Dr. Henderson ...Erin...pretty well. She’s different from the other shrinks and counselors he’s been forced to see over the years. Evaluations after ops, after he’d been captured in Korea, after the Chitauri invasion. Always the same questions, always the same neutral expressions. “How did that make you feel?” “Why don’t you tell me what you think about that, Agent Barton?” He’s gotten so good at the answers that they all want to hear that he’s never failed to pass an evaluation, and has always gotten the hell out of their bland, nearly identical offices as fast as possible. Erin’s different though. Her office feels more like a living room, and she doesn’t make him feel twitchy and trapped the way the others had. She just talks to him, and listens when he feels like talking, and most importantly, she doesn’t claim to have all the answers. He thinks the reason he’d decided to keep seeing her is that she’d been honest with him at the first appointment.

 

“I’ve got to tell you, Clint…” She doesn’t call him “Agent” either, which he also likes. “I’ve never treated a superhero before. Oh, I know you’re probably going to say you’re just a guy like anybody else, but wait just a minute. I’m not talking about your treatment being different because of whatever abilities you may have.”

 

“Okay...what, then?”

 

“I think it’s short sighted of any medical professional to assume that your reactions to trauma are going to be the same as those of a regular person. You face things in your line of work that would be unthinkable for most people. I’d find it a little insulting if I were you, for a doctor or psychologist to assume that your brain and body aren’t going to be a little better equipped than a regular patient to process and handle certain things. This is going to be a learning process for me, and I hope you’ll be patient with me.”

 

He’d blinked at her in surprise. The attitude she’d been talking about had been exactly the reason he’d always gotten fed up with therapy in the first place. He’s not fucking fragile, and it’s always pissed him off when people treat him like he is. He knows he’s got issues, but who doesn’t? Being who he is, knowing that the things he does, even the things he’s suffered, make the world a better place? It goes a long way towards keeping things in perspective. 

 

“Yeah...okay. I’ll try,” he’d said, and for the first time, he’d meant it. She’s easy to talk to, and to his great relief, she hadn’t freaked out in the slightest when he’d revealed the nature of his relationships with Natasha and Phil to her. She’d even already had a little knowledge about BDSM and never makes him feel weird talking about it.

 

“Of course I’m still coming. I have a meeting in an hour, and it will probably take a few hours, but I’ll be free the rest of the day,” Phil assures him. Clint’s shoulders slump a little in relief. They’ve been intimate several times since his escape from the mutant shapeshifter who had tortured him wearing Phil’s face and body, but there hasn’t been anything else yet. He appreciates how solicitous Phil is of his feelings, he does, but… He’s  _ really _ hoping that after the appointment this afternoon, his master is going to believe him when he says he’s ready.  _ More _ than ready. Actually, he’s pretty sure that if Phil doesn’t relent and pummel his ass pretty soon, he’s going to break into tiny pieces of frustrated longing. Or do something stupid. Possibly both.

 

He finds himself edgy with nervous energy after Phil leaves for his meeting, and decides the best thing he can do is to just tire the edge off, so he changes into workout clothes and heads for the gym. He finds that his steps falter for a second when the steady thudding noise he hears before he opens the door comes from Steve’s fists making repeated contact with the heavy bag. Tony and Bruce had worked together to create one the super soldier won’t either rupture or knock off its mounting brackets, so that Stever can beat the shit out of it to his heart’s content. It’s not that he doesn’t like Steve. He does. Likes him, respects him, and trusts his leadership. It’s just that out of all of them, Steve is the one he relates to the least. He’s got something in common with the rest of his team, seeing as they’re all raging freaks and even Bruce has been corrupted over to the dark side a little, for Darcy. He doesn’t know anything about Steve personally, really, and every time stuff about Clint’s beautifully perverted relationship with his lovers comes up in conversation, Cap always just looks really uncomfortable and more than a little embarrassed. 

 

He shakes his head at himself and pushes through the door, heading for the treadmill to get his muscles warmed up and moving. Steve pauses, steadying the bag, and nods at him.

 

“Barton,” he says, making a creditable attempt at a friendly smile. Clint nods back.

 

“Hey Steve.” But he frowns to himself when he turns his back to program the treadmill and Steve goes back to pounding the bag with his bare fists. He knows Steve doesn’t have a personal problem with him. Cap’s so hung up on team communication and trust that if he did, Clint would know about it. He steps on the machine and starts out at an easy jog, thinking about it. It’s none of his business, and Steve’s a private guy, when it comes to pretty much anything that  _ doesn’t _ have to do with the team. He should just run, and mind his own business. 

 

After a few minutes, he sighs. He’d been the same at one point, hiding out in rafters and keeping mostly to himself, but his life has changed a lot in the last year or so. The Hawkeye he is now is a mouthy fucker, and never knows when to mind his own business. Especially not when it comes to anyone who matters. And even if they’re not best bros, Rogers matters, to him, and to all of them.

 

“Something’s eating you,” he says, loud enough for Steve to hear him over the whir of the treadmill and the meaty sounds of Steve’s fists hitting the bag. Steve pauses for a second, then his eyebrows draw together and he hits the bag harder.

 

“I’ll be okay,” he says a little breathlessly. Possibly he will be. Probably, even. But he’s not okay  _ now _ , not by a long shot. Anger radiates off him in almost palpable waves. Clint tries to relieve some of the tension, because after all he never has been one to keep his mouth shut when there’s something smart assed to be said.

 

“Maybe you should find somebody like Phil or Pepper to beat it out of you, whatever it is, since that bag doesn’t look like it’s up to the task,” he says with a smile. Steve’s reaction isn’t what he expects. He expects the poor guy’s ears to turn red and his shoulders to hunch uncomfortably, the way they usually do, but that’s not what happens. Steve’s hands slap loudly against the sides of the heavy bag as he stills its swinging abruptly. His blue eyes bore into Clint, darker and more...well... _ feral _ than he’s ever seen them.

 

“No,” Steve says softly, in a voice that sends a small chill up Clint’s spine. “No...that’s  _ not _ what would do it for me.”

 

Somehow Clint doesn’t get the impression Steve’s saying he wouldn’t be interested in the beating part. Just...not in being beaten. It startles him so much that for almost a minute, he’s actually speechless. Steve’s mouth quirks up a little on one side for a moment, then he turns back to the bag and hits it so hard that the specially designed, nearly indestructible coating on its canvas splits a little.

 

“Steve,” Clint says quietly, dropping that particular topic because he’s pretty damn sure it has nothing to do with whatever’s eating at Steve  _ and _ that Steve wouldn’t want to talk about it with him anyway or he would have by now. “Dude. Beating the fuck out of that thing doesn’t look like it’s working either. Holding shit in never helps. Believe me, I should know.”

 

Steve sighs and steadies the bag again to frown at the small rupture in one seam. 

 

“Tony’s going to be furious,” he mutters.

 

“Because you broke one of his inventions?”

 

“No,” says Steve, with another almost-smirk, “because he insisted I wouldn’t be able to.”

 

“Steve…” Clint opens his mouth to keep trying, but Rogers interrupts him.

 

“I’ve been meaning to apologize to you,” he says abruptly. Clint wracks his brains for a few seconds, trying to recall whether Cap’s said or done anything recently that Steve might think would’ve offended him, but comes up empty.

 

“Why?”

 

“Because of...what happened to you,” replies Steve uncomfortably. He’s apparently decided the bag can take a little more punishment, or else just wants to  _ really _ destroy it before showing it to Tony.

 

“Oh. None of that was your fault,” says Clint awkwardly. 

 

“I should have been there sooner,” mutters Steve, hitting the bag again.

 

“Hey...it’s okay. I mean, I’m all right now, and getting better all the time. You guys found me, and caught the bad guys, and they didn’t learn anything anybody could use against us. I’m alive and sane and I’m gonna be fine.”

 

Steve presses his lips together in a thin, angry line and shakes his head.

 

“I had nothing to do with it. I was essentially useless,” he says bitterly, his left fist colliding violently with the punching bag. 

 

“C’mon man,” says Clint calmly, hoping to soothe him a little, “you can’t blame yourself.”

 

“Can’t I?” Steve fires back bitterly. “I’m supposed to be the leader of this team. Some leader. Want to know what I was doing, while everyone else was doing something to try to locate you? I was pretending to organize a bunch of SHIELD agents to mobilize once we’d discovered your location.”

 

“That’s not nothing,” says Clint awkwardly. Steve shoots him a dirty look.

 

“Like they were going to send agents to rescue you when you’re one of the Avengers, two of whom can fly fast enough to break the sound barrier several times over? It was busywork. To keep me out of the way. While one of my team was being hurt. I was USELESS!” His last word is shouted at the top of his lungs, and accompanied by another vicious blow to the punching bag. This one shatters the steel link connecting it to the ceiling, and it flies across the room, colliding with a nautilus machine, then falling to the floor with a heavy whump. Clint stares at him for several long moments, his mouth hanging open. He tries, for Steve’s sake, because it’s obvious he’s been beating himself up over this, to hold back the hilarity that bubbles up in his chest, but it less than perfectly successful. Steve turns and stares at him incredulously when Clint snorts with laughter.

 

“You were nearly killed, and you think this is  _ funny _ ?” he demands angrily.

 

“Oh man,” says Clint, stopping the treadmill and swiping a hand over his face, trying to get control over his expression. “I’m sorry. I’m not...ah...I’m not laughing at you, or at what happened. It’s just...you have no idea how many times I’ve felt exactly the way you’re talking about. I mean, the only thing I bring to the table where a bunch of actual  _ superheroes _ sit is that I’m a really good shot. If any of the opponents we’ve gone up against actually got ahold of me, I’d snap like a twig in a second.”

 

“That’s not...I mean, your skills have saved more than one of us on multiple occasions,” protests Steve.

 

“Maybe,” agrees Clint easily. “But yours have saved more...of us, and other people...a lot more often. And what do you think Thor was doing, while the rest of you were doing….whatever it was, even if it was just busywork?”

 

“I…,” Steve says, then frowns. “But Thor was the one who  _ got _ to you. I’m just…”

 

“What you are,” says Clint keenly, “is frustrated. Steve...we all have different things we bring to the table. Some of them work in certain situations while others have to take a back seat. As team leader, I know you know that.”

 

“Maybe,” sighs Steve.

 

“It seems to me you just need a better outlet for frustration than beating the shit out of a punching bag.”

 

“Oh? And you’ve got a better idea?” asks Steve, sounding so bleak it makes Clint feel bad for him.

 

“Huh. Well, you know what works for me….and Natasha, and Tony, and...even Bruce, apparently…” says Clint cautiously. Steve’s eyebrows go up when he mentions Bruce, but he doesn’t comment on it. 

 

“...” Steve opens his mouth, looking as though he wants to say something, then closes it again. He hunches his shoulders and looks away, his ears turning red. It’s a response Clint’s plenty familiar with, and yet…

 

“It was a joke, what I said earlier? About getting someone to beat this out of you,” he says casually, walking over to one of the many weight machine and leaning over to adjust it so he can do some leg curls. “But when you said  _ that _ wasn’t what would do it for you? You didn’t mean the whole….” He lifts one hand and waves his fingers in the air. “The concept. Just not having it done  _ to _ you. Well, for you.”

 

“Clint,” says Steve uncomfortably, turning to go and pick up the fallen heavy bag.

 

“Steve, getting off on the idea of...smacking someone around...that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. I mean, I think I get that...the way you were raised...the idea of doing something like that to a woman might seem...bad, I guess. But things have changed a lot, and I wish you’d...well, you should talk to Phil about it. He’s a lot better at explaining things than me. If you give yourself a break, and...find the right person to let it out on...well, with…”

 

“That’s the thing,” says Steve softly. He looks down, opening his hands and staring at them. “I’m pretty sure that person doesn’t exist. Not because I wouldn’t want to, but because I can never allow myself to. I don’t have Thor’s thousand years of practice to control my strength, or Tony’s ability to take it off and put it away, or your ability to be a normal guy...not even Bruce’s ability to be just as normal, when he’s not...green. It’s always there, always on, and it doesn’t come with a...built in control knob. Even when I try hitting something with normal human strength, most of the time I end up breaking it. I’d never risk doing that to a person who...trusted me  _ that _ way.” He sighs, and lets his hands fall to his sides. When he looks back at Clint, he smiles again, and there’s a little more sincerity behind it. “Appreciate the sentiment, anyway. But mostly…thanks.”

 

“For what?” asks Clint in surprise, pausing in the act of hooking his feet under the padded rests of the bench.

 

“For what you said about how each of us have abilities targeted for different specialties. It helped. That, and that you’re really not angry that I...didn’t get there sooner.”

 

“Oh. Sure. No problem. You’re...a good leader, Cap. I’d trust you to have my back in any situation,” Clint says simply, because it’s true. Steve smiles a little more sincerely, and leans down to pick up his towel and water bottle as he takes his leave. Clint watches him go, then lays down on the bench and starts on a series of leg curls, frowning a little.

 

Partly, his mind is still reeling over his discovery and what it means. Can it really be that Captain America is just as much of a deviant as some of the rest of them? How is that even possible?

 

_ Haven’t you ever heard the phrase “1950s household” _ asks his inner voice, and even though Steve had grown up in the 40s, the roles of men and women which are mimicked in this particular kink were pretty much the same then. It makes him wonder a little what the relationship was like between Steve’s parents. Men had been allowed to discipline their wives for misbehavior back then, and it wasn’t considered abuse. He’d bed his left hand that Steve would never intentionally abuse a woman, which is saying a  _ lot _ , but….but what if the things he might have seen as a child between certain men and women had influenced him? And what if the woman in question liked the discipline, as opposed to hating and fearing it?  _ Poor Cap _ , he thinks.  _ To be so strong you’re afraid of breaking someone if you ever dare try the things you really want to try. _ And he suddenly sees Steve’s reactions when conversation takes a turns towards kink in a very different light. 

 

_ He wasn’t embarrassed, _ thinks Clint, letting the bar he’s lifting with his legs fall with a loud clang.  _ He was jealous. _ He finishes his workout, unable to get thoughts of Steve and his predicament out of his head. He’s still thinking about it when he heads to his rooms for a shower and a bite to eat around noon. Not that he comes up with any kind of a solution for the team’s leader or anything, but he thinks about it anyway. He’s towelling himself off when his phone chimes with a text from Phil that his meeting is finally over, and would Clint like to have lunch. Glad he’d elected for the shower before eating, Clint replies in the affirmative, then throws on some clothes and meets Phil in the garage under the mansion. 

 

Once he’s parked the nondescript black sedan he’s borrowing from SHIELD while in New York, Phil climbs out and greets Hawkeye with a brief kiss. Clint smiles happily and leans against Phil for a few seconds, just breathing him in. There’s a little bit if a tangle of nerves in his stomach over their impending appointment, but his pleasure at being with his Master overshadows it enough that he’s able to ignore it.

 

They decide to walk, as it’s a pleasant, early Fall afternoon. It doesn’t take long to reach one of the tens of thousands of Sabrett’s hot dog stands which line the streets of the City. Though Phil is normally a pretty health-conscious sort of person, he’s always had a weakness for Sabrett’s hot dogs, and he’s mourned the fact that there’s nothing to compare to them in San Francisco to Clint on more than one occasion. Phil takes his old school, with nothing but mustard and relish, while Clint orders his with everything but the kitchen sink. They carry their hot dogs, along with Italian cream sodas, over to Central Park where they find a tree to sit under. Phil laughs at Clint trying to eat his lunch without dripping the toppings all over himself, which he manages to do, but only barely. Once they’re done, Phil leans back against the tree and Clint lays his head on Phil’s lap. His Master’s fingers card slowly through his hair, which makes him feel like purring. He closes his eyes with a sigh, and smiles.

 

“How are you doing with the therapist?” asks Phil softly. Clint opens his eyes and looks up at him. He can see the worry in Phil’s eyes, because Phil knows Clint’s history with therapists. 

 

“Good,” he replies, then sits up when he sees Phil’s dubious frown. “No, really. I know I’ve pretty much skated out on every shrink and counselor I’ve ever been made to go to, but I’m not doing that this time. I promised. And anyway, I actually like Erin. Dr. Henderson. She’s different from anybody else I’ve ever talked to. She’s not full of shit, for one thing. And she gets that things are different for me, because of who I am, and the things I’ve done...and seen….and stuff.”

 

“I’m glad to hear it,” says Phil, smiling at him. “I’m looking forward to meeting her.”

 

“Me too,” agrees Clint. “What time is it?”

 

“About time we got going, if we don’t want to be late,” Phil says. They get up and head back to the mansion to pick up a car. Neither of them cares much for public transportation. They’re too conditioned by their spy training to really feel comfortable letting a stranger be in charge of getting them anywhere.

 

*************

 

“Welcome, Director. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Won’t you both come in and sit down?” Erin greets them at the door to her office, extending her hand to Phil. He shakes it and returns her friendly smile.

 

“It’s Phil, please,” he says, following Hawkeye into the spacious, well-lighted room. Erin’s office doesn’t feel much like an office at all. It doesn’t have a desk, for one thing. It looks very much like someone’s living room, with a couple of large, comfortable couches, two arm chairs, lots of squashy pillows, and a few end tables between the seating arrangements. There are no harsh fluorescents, only lamps and big windows. There aren’t any cheesy inspirational posters on the walls either, only a few classic art prints. 

 

“Phil,” agrees Erin, then waits for them to choose their seats before she joins them. Clint sits next to Phil on the bigger of the two couches, and Erin takes the armchair facing them. “Clint’s talked about you so much. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

 

“Likewise,” says Phil, taking Clint’s hand and looking at him with a fond smile. “I have to say, you’re the first therapist he’s ever been willing to open up to even a little.”

 

Dr. Henderson laughs and winks at Hawkeye, which makes him feel a lot less embarrassed by Phil’s comment.

 

“To be honest,” she says, “the more I talk to you, Clint, and learn about how other professionals have approached you, I can’t really blame you for coming into this thing with misgivings. I just hope I’m not making the same mistakes so many of them did.”

 

“If we’re being honest, I probably wouldn’t still be coming back,” responds Clint.

 

“I’m glad.” She sounds like she actually means it, which is yet another of the reasons Clint is still willing to stick with the therapy. “Now, why don’t you tell Phil what you wanted to talk about today.”

 

Clint hunches his shoulders and glances at Phil out of the corners of his eyes.

 

“I was kinda hoping you were gonna be the one to tell him that,” he mutters.

 

“Uh huh,” she says with an unapologetic grin. “Because it’s my job to make things easy on you.” 

 

“Hardass,” Clint complains, which makes Phil chuckle a little. He sighs, and turns to face his lover. “Okay, fine. I get it. Not your job to communicate for us. Sir...I understand why you’ve been feeling cautious about...playing...since my assault. But it’s something we’ve been talking about in sessions the past couple of weeks, and I want you to believe me when I say I’m ready.”

 

Phil looks searchingly at him for some time before he responds. Clint can feel his hand sweating a little in Phil’s gentle grasp. His lover turns his gaze on Dr. Henderson and frowns thoughtfully.

 

“How much detail has he shared with you? About the nature of our relationship, and about what happened to him during his attack?” he asks cautiously. Erin smiles at him and leans back in her chair.

 

“I can understand your reservations,” she says slowly. “Clint has told me that he has a rather long-running history of telling his therapists what they want to hear so they’ll clear him for duty, and that you’re probably not going to believe him unless you hear things from me. I’ll admit that a lot of what we’re doing together is as much a learning experience for me as it is for him. I’ve never treated someone who helped save the world before, and until he became my patient, I had only a rudimentary understanding of BDSM. But I’ve been doing a lot of homework, and Clint’s been very helpful in answering any questions I may have. You’re welcome to look as my session notes, if you like. Clint’s already signed a HIPPA agreement, and he mentioned that it might be the fastest way to alleviate your concerns.” She reaches into the big canvas tote she uses instead of briefcase and pulls out a folder, handing it over to Phil, who takes it and opens the file.

 

Clint sits and watches him while he reads, hardly daring to breathe as he takes in the expressions on his Master’s face. Phil can read much faster and a verbal explanation would take, and it’s not long before his eyebrows go up in surprise and a smile begins to spread slowly across his face. In a few minutes, he closes the file and hands it back to Erin, then turns to face Clint with an even bigger smile.

 

“I’m so proud of you,” he says softly. “I honestly didn’t expect you to open up so much to anyone who wasn’t me or Natasha. You’ve more than kept your promise.”

 

“Thank you, Sir,” whispers Clint.

 

“So...what makes the two of you so certain that Clint is ready for the kind of play we’ve done in the past, and that I shouldn’t continue to be cautious?” he demands seriously. Clint looks desperately at Erin.

 

“I understand that you’re a cautious man, especially when it comes to your lover’s mental health and safety. I’ve heard a few stories of your discussion and negotiation when it comes to trying new things, and I’m pleased to hear you take that tact with Clint, for all that he’s mentioned he sometimes thinks you can be a little more careful than he’d like to be. I’ve read some horror stories about some pretty disastrous things that have happened to subs whose Dominants didn’t take your approach. But in this case, I happen to agree with Clint. He really is ready.”

 

Clint feels like cheering when she says this, but restrains himself and lets her continue. They’d discussed this conversation in their last session, and she’d finally agreed to explain things to Phil, even though she usually preferred for patients to do their own talking to their partners. Phil is too used to Clint trying to wheedle his way into things he wants, and Clint’s history of withholding the truth from medical professionals is too well established.

“I don’t blame you at all for feeling reluctant to engage in intense play of any kind, considering the brutality with which the shapeshifter...and let me tell you,  _ that _ is something I never thought I’d hear myself say to anyone who wasn’t suffering from some kind of delusions in my line of work...attacked him. Especially since he was using an implement which resembled something out of your own collection of toys. Emphasis on resembled, however, as I’m given to understand that the whip he used wasn’t something of the sort a man like you would ever consider using on another person.”

 

“That’s true,” murmurs Phil, giving Clint’s hand a gentle squeeze.

 

“And it’s therein lies the reason I agree with Clint when he’s told me why he’s ready. Once he realized that the man who attacked him wasn’t really you, any associations he bore, any resemblance...it ended there for Clint. I’ve discovered in talking to him that he really does have an extraordinary ability to separate the two. I’ve heard about what happened with the man named Vespucci as well, and I’m convinced that this incident is the same in Clint’s mind now. He has no confusion in his mind, even in his subconscious, between you and his attacker.”

 

Phil is quiet for some time, just looking into Clint’s eyes as if he’s looking for something. Clint really,  _ really _ hopes he finds what he wants to see. Because if Phil goes back to the West coast next week without playing, he really thinks he may die of frustration. They’ve gone longer between scening than this, but for some reason it’s more important to Clint this time. 

 

“Maybe it’s been me who hasn’t been able to get past this,” says Phil slowly. “I haven’t been able to get the thoughts of it out of my head...someone wearing my face...doing those things to you. I know intellectually that there’s no reason for me to feel guilty about it, but in a way, I think I have been, and I’m sorry for that. I do know that you’re very good at separating the things that happen to you in the field from the rest of your life, and I’m so happy to hear that it’s the case here too. All right, baby boy. I’m convinced. I’ll stop worrying, and trust you to know what you’re ready for from now on.”

 

Clint supposes in retrospect that jumping up off the couch and whooping for joy is probably a little juvenile, but he doesn’t care.

  
  



	22. Sorry for the tease - new info

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I want to apologize to everyone who's following this story and waiting for my very slow updates. I stopped writing due to health reasons for a long time, and when I started again, I found it really hard to connect to these stories for some reason. I've come to believe that the reason is because I am much more connected to the characters I interact with on a daily basis on my Tumblrs for my other main fandoms. Since my mission is to promote and educate about safe and healthy BDSM, I've finally decided to create a blog for all of my Avengers characters so that you can interact with them too. I have a very strong feeling that story updates will start coming much more often very soon!

Come join the Author and the Avengers on Tumblr at 1-800-askavengers.tumblr.com

 

Also, check out information about me and my mission at charis2770.tumblr.com


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